If a person is cremated and buried, but a relative keeps a bone to be near the relative forever, is that gross abuse of a corpse?
How would the relative obtain the bone from the body in the first place? Maybe I just don’t get it, but I don’t see how you could do this…
The relative received the ashes to bury, opened the box and took one out. Kind of gross, huh?
I thought bones were completely burned during cremation.
There is no law that says you have to bury the cremated ashes. The funeral parlor will hand them to you in an appropriate container, and you are free to do with them as you please. Cast them to the wind if that’s your thing.
Cremation doesn’t reduce the entire body to ash. Bone fragments are generally found mixed in with the ash.
As with many legal questions, the answer to this one may depend on jurisdiction. My IANAL WAG is that it would not constitute gross abuse of a corpse to keep a bone fragment that would otherwise have been buried. After all, no one would consider keeping the entire box of ashes on the mantle to be such so why would keeping a portion of them be?
Cremation doesn’t reduce the entire body to ash. Bone fragments are generally found mixed in with the ash.
As with many legal questions, the answer to this one may depend on jurisdiction. My IANAL WAG is that it would not constitute gross abuse of a corpse to keep a bone fragment that would otherwise have been buried. After all, no one would consider keeping the entire box of ashes on the mantle to be such so why would keeping a portion of them be?
Well, I guess it would depend on what they’re doing with the “bone.”
So, in the ashes you can actually get a whole bone? Really? I thought they burned it all up.
Sorry, that was in response to PurplePerson’s comments:
I know that Otto said “fragments” can be found in the ashes, but this isn’t the same thing.
As far as I’m aware, even though cremation does not reduce the body completely to ash, the remaining bones are normally ground into powder and mixed with the ash. If there are any large bone fragments left, then the crematorium likely didn’t do its job correctly.
Cremation doesn’t burn up bones at all. The small fragments found in cremains are the result of crushing/grinding after burning is completed. Ancient cremated remains are actually better-preserved than simply buried remains.
It’s tangential, but maybe worth noting:
I’m sure many of you heard of the case in north GA about 18 months ago. The Marsh Crematorium, where the guy was not cremating bodies at all and he dumped about 150 bodies all over his property, including in his lake and burried in shallow graves.
The only thing he was charged with was “theft by deception” for ripping the people off who thought they were paying for a cremation. At that time, there was no law about abusing a corpse.
Taken from a google cached page of an accessatlanta.com page – herehttp://216.239.41.100/search?q=cache:vmrmRpAuHEwJ:www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/crematory/0218main.html+marsh+crematorium+law+corpse&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
There was legislation that was going to be submitted to try to make abusing a corpse a felony, but I never heard any more about the bill.
Also, I’d imagine this sort of law varies from state to state.
Recently several twenty-somethings here were charged with murder and gross abuse of a corpse (among other things).
The charge is that 5 people kidnapped a young lady who had allegedly flirted with the boyfriend of one of the girls. The 5 people apparently killed her then set her corpse on fire to destoy evidence.
Given that example, I would guess keeping a bone fragment would not be in the same league.
Maybe I live in a weird neighborhood, but the two widows on my road both have the remains of their husbands on their mantles. I, myself, have the remains of my dog.
PurplePerson:
“If a person is cremated and buried, but a relative keeps a bone to be near the relative forever, is that gross abuse of a corpse?”
Probably not. Was the bone retrieved before or after interment?
“The relative received the ashes to bury, opened the box and took one out. Kind of gross, huh?”
Not necessarily. I’d like to be shot into space. SOMEBODY has to arrange that…
The cultural aspects of this (what’s considered weird or gross, in particular) are interesting.
In a Shinto funeral ceremony, the body is burned until there are just bone fragments left (the biggest were about palm-sized). The fragments are placed on a tray and the family and friends take turns placing the fragments into the urn with chopsticks. It involved some complicated chopstick-to-chopstick passing, but fortunately I managed to do it without any slip-ups. Dropping pieces of your father-in-law is not the best way to impress the family.