There are all sorts of strange things people do in their wills, at least it seems so from some of the threads here. I recall one thread where someone had their skull given to their heir, and a mention of someone wanting their skull used in Hamlet. However what if I had a friend really curious about the taste of flesh, but enough of an upstanding citizen to not, um, violate various legal and societal protocols to obtain it (I don’t have a friend like this of course… all of my friends already have at least 30 murders under their belts :p). Could I, for the benefit of my hypothetical friend, give a little bit of my body to them? I understand there are corpse disposal laws, so the whole body is out, but what about a tiny chunk of my arm, just about the size of those free samples they hand out at grocery stores for their products?
Obviously it would be prepared to minimize risk of spreading disease, but given I provide just a small part, and attempt to follow anything to minimize complications, could I legally give someone a sample of my postmortem flesh? I found via searching old threads that cannibalism isn’t out and out illegal, and they usually get them for other things (usually murder, necrophilia, or related), and the only thread with voluntary involved a restaurant with whole corpses (where the idea of the FDA getting involved was mentioned, as well as corpse disposal preventing entire corpses from being used), but no one seemed to mention willingly giving a small piece of your body to someone who is just curious, so I thought I’d ask.
Are you sure? I thought cannibalism itself wasn’t illegal, simply most of the means necessary to do so. At least that’s what I gathered from old threads, maybe I should recheck the location of the posters in question.
You can will people parts. I don’t know if they could eat them legally anywhere in the USA. They could take the part to sea and eat it beyond our territorial boundaries. People will bodies all the time, they just have to be dealt with properly.
The answer to your question is technically NO and it has nothing to do with cannibalism. As my sister and I found out fighting my dad’s third ex-wife over his estate (long story), a person’s dead body becomes the property of their next-of-kin and NOT their will beneficiary. Thus any disposal of the body in the will is at the discretion of the n-o-k.
The question is can the next-of-kin allow someone to eat your flesh and I would assume that is dependent on state body-disposal laws. I would say the main issue would be the chemicals used in the enbalming process.
Nothing requires you to be embalmed. I would expect somebody doing this to forgo the process on the flesh in question, or at least only use drinking alcohol.
Every state criminalizes “gross abuse of a corpse” or the like. Cannibalism has typically (as in Jeffrey Dahmer’s case) been interpreted to fall under that heading. As Annie says, you cannot consent to illegal acts, even if you really wanna. There was a case in Germany not long ago in which a man agreed to be killed and eaten by another; the eater was nevertheless prosecuted and convicted (although he was found to have been mentally disturbed, IIRC - no surprise there!). A case in the U.S. would be handled much the same way.
I remember hearing about this incident on the radio a few years ago. It justifies the skepticism that cannibalism might not be illegal everywhere as expected. I imagine cannibalism, like necrophilia, could be so rare in some places that it never occurs to legislators to outlaw it.
I don’t know: In for a penis, in for a pound, I always say. How small does it have to be to stop being abuse of a corpse? My gut feeling is that there isn’t a sharp cutoff.
I dug up this article that asserts “In both Britain and most of the United States, the act of eating human flesh is not illegal.” There’s nothing in there to back it up though.
I presume most of the ways to acquire human meat are illegal, including selling and buying human body parts of any kind. I’m not convinced that the act of eating long pig is illegal everywhere though.
Jragon, I can’t believe I’m the first person to be asking this, but…why the hell would this be on any body’s “To Do” list in the first place? :eek: :smack:
I’ve thought of it. I’d like for my body to be of some use when I die. Fossilization would be best, in order to represent my species when the bio-bot scientists of the 3 millionth century dig up and study my slice of Humaniferous era strata. Otherwise, it would be nice to be consumed by my friends and family. A close third is getting plowed under a field and consumed by the rice, corn, wheat, or oats that will in turn feed thousands of otherwise hungry people.
None of those options will actually occur, but no matter what, I am definitely not getting pickled, boxed up, and buried like the rest of those sardines in the cemetery.
Just picture it: A giant barbecue with kegs and kegs of beer, loud music, and anybody who ever knew me is invited along with all their friends too. Grind me up with a crapload of hamburger and serve me to the masses. I figure if enough people came we could get the mixture down to less than a tablespoon of me per burger; and that wouldn’t really be too icky, would it guys?
So anyway, long story short, all dopers are hereby invited to my funeral. I hope it isn’t too soon, but if it is, don’t forget to try the delicious barbecue!
I was told that IWW leader Joe Hill was cremated and that ten people ingested a portion of his ashes. As they die, they’re supposed to be cremated and have ten people ingest a portion of their ashes, and so on, to keep a little bit of Hill circulating in the labor movement. All Wikipedia says is that Abbie Hoffman supposedly suggested several people who should eat some of the last bits of ashes that turned up a couple of decades ago and the Billy Bragg ate some. Can anyone verify the original story? Google tells me nothing.
:smack: