Komercjalizacja ciała ludzkiego w społeczeństwie ryzyka biomedycznego
Commercialization of human body in a society of biomedical risk

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses transformation of medicine from the discipline that is aimed at repairing to the discipline aimed at fulfilling the desires. The main part of human desires is related to functioning of a body, its exposition, feeling and perception. Medicine adjusts itself to the needs of consumption society and addresses the need for a “cultural body”. Expansion of cultural factors into biological features, which are subject to oppressive measures to make a body more attractive, is a syndrome of modernity. Human body is commercialized both when it becomes organ recipient and donor. Commercialization of a body, understood as a process finalized with commercial exchange, is discussed through the analysis of problems of such biomedical subdisciplines as transplantology, assisted reproductive medicine, aesthetic medicine, genetic engineering. The paper aims at answering the question whether new technologies and medicine of human desires can be classified as elements of a project of “civilizing the body” or rather they cause effect of culture of fear and generate new ethical problems in a society of biomedical risk.

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