There seem to be a number of laws out there ‘protecting’ corpses from certain forms of abuse; necrophilia, etc. They seem to be largely about protecting the dignity of… well, something or someone, perhaps surviving family members.
This thread was inspired by a number of recent ones about organ donation, or the lack thereof.
Is a corpse property owned by the next of kin? Is it public property? Does it have any ‘rights’?
If government decided that corpses are a valuable resouce for the living, and passed laws to salvage useful organs or tissues from every corpse, regardless of the wishes of survivng family members, what would be the legal obstacles to such laws?
Saw a documentary that touches on this. If someone dies in LA and nobody claims the body they cremate the body and keep the ashes for about 1 year so they can be claimed. When the year is up with no claim they bury the ashes in a common grave. The also hold on to their stuff for about 6 months and then auction it off. In some cases they are able to contact relatives and they don’t want to be involved.
I wonder if they could take the heart, lungs or whatever instead of just cremating the whole thing? I mean, if they can burn it or bury it without permission, why not do whatever they want?
To the best of my knowledge, while it’s pretty much a local-jurisdiction question (states , Lander, Scots law, etc. rather than national or international standard laws), there’s a pretty common standard that the corpse is the property of the deceased’s estate, to be disposed of in accordance with his instructions, and, like any other part of the estate, subject to challenge by an heir or consensus by all heirs that the terms of the will or other insturctions are improper and should be superseded.
Human Remains are not property at common law, and are incapable of being stolen. Here is more than you would want to know about the legal status of human remains.
because you have to have the permission of next of kin, so between the notification process and getting permisison the body parts would have expired to the unusable point. That is why having a signed donor card is very important if you are serious about wanting to be parted out, that way they do not need to track anybody down.A hospital is not going to put a corpse on life support until they can track down next of kin, which is what it would take to keep the organs usable. If they have the donor card, they will harvest you immediately, then track down next of kin.
Thanks for that link. Too bad that pages 74-75 are missing, as it seems they may contain more of the discussion about corpses and body parts.
I’m not sure how much if any of this is applicable to US law, and it is unclear just which nation’s laws are being considered, though I did see one mention of Australia and several references to Acts of Parliament.
And the references to ownership are mostly in the negative. A corpse is not property, unless certain things are done to it which make it property. But some aterial taken from live persons, such as blood, are considered property. All very foggy.
But there is case law of organs being removed and the family having no right to recover them, for instance to organs removed during an autopsy. There are also references to rights of possession that suggest that it might be possible for some person or institution to use the body as they see fit without regard to family wishes.
and this one: Error 404 | Emory University | Atlanta GA (“The next of kin have the right to dispose of the body in limited circumstances, possess the body for burial, and prevent its mutilation. Applying Brotherton, we therefore hold that Michigan provides the next of kin with a constitutionally protected property interest in the dead body of a relative.”)
Thanks, these are much clearer. It suggest to me that the Federal government couldn’t realistically step in with some national laws, but that the states probably could create laws allowing the harvesting of body parts in any cases where it was feasible. I’m sure that’s way too simplistic, but these cases seem to have been decided by fairly straightforward interpretations of existing law rather than some unenumerated rights that families have that are in conflict with state laws.
You got it. In each case, the federal court examined state law to determine if the next of kin had a property right in the deceased’s body parts. States are free to change their laws if they see fit.
We have one of those cute little political lawn signs with a drawing of Chief Tammany and a text of ‘Vote Early, Vote Often!’ that we made up a few years ago.
