Necrophilia should be legalised because we don’t have enough organ donors. I’m serious, bear with me. Organ donation rates are abysmal in countries that require people to opt in. Most choose the default (not opting in). Not even from laziness but because people have a cognitive bias of seeing defaults as reasonable, even if they’re ridiculous. The opt-in for donations is a misguided sentiment about human worth. Hundreds die needlessly every day for the sake of human dignity.
Of course the other origin of respecting the corpse is belief in resurrection and immaterial souls (that miraculously act as puppetmasters). The only way it would be wrong for the government to make use of your body after death (if you don’t leave instructions to the contrary) is if there was a You that survived death. Otherwise using the harm principle: there’s nobody around to be harmed so it can’t be wrong. (You can even argue that people don’t have the post-mortem right to control their body at all, eg. through a living will. But let’s stick to the less radical version. For now.)
Necrophilia should be legalised (at least in principle) for the same reasons. I’m not talking about the case of the deceased’s family, which owns the body (although they should be able to sell it to a necrophiliac). And if the ownerless corpse is suitable for organ donations, the medical system should certainly get first pick. But for an unidentified corpse that’s unfit for any use, if someone was to have sex with it, the only source for objections would be moral disgust.
You might think human dignity should only be suspended for organ donations (or stem cell research) since there’s benefit to society; but not for frivolous things like necrophilia. I then recommend Stephen Pinker’s excellent debunking of dignity. Any concept of dignity that’s divorced from harm is just a fairy tale. Always.
“But what about the evolutionary origin of the necrophilia taboo? It’s a very risky activity in terms of health.” It’s interesting to note that the only strong objection is one of harm: the necrophiliac might catch a disease and infect others, or become a burden on the healthcare system. Even then, the objection is weak for legal purposes: it’s not illegal to have unprotected sex with a living person. Nor would it be a small deal to criminalise it. There’s no reason to treat unprotected necrophilia any differently.
“Even if it shouldn’t be illegal, it’s still not normal: only a mentally ill person wants to have sex with a corpse”. Perhaps. But note that mental illness is defined largely in terms of harm, not disgust. (Homosexuality was removed from the official list of psychiatric disorders in 1973 due to a lack-of-harm argument.) I’ve evolved from the same primates as everyone else, so my inborn disgust at necrophilia is about average. But I’d hesitate to label as a disease something where the only harm done to a person is me being disgusted.
8 comments ↓
So, if your mum died, you’d be cool with donating her body to a necrophiliac?
And how long would you wait to do it? Because organ donation needs to happen straight away, and I’m guessing necrophilia is no different. I could be wrong, though.
Also, if you’re going to take the body apart for organ donation, it probably won’t be as useful to a necrophiliac, who again, I imagine they would want to have the body more or less intact. I’m sure there are some very picky necroes out there. Does that mean they get first priority with the corpse and THEN it gets handed over for organ donation? They would need to have very strict supervision.
Finally, I can’t help but wonder if the idea of legalised necrophilia may encourage some people to want to help speed up the process… Especially when they show pictures of the victim on the news. They would think “yeah, I totally want her stiff, cold body!”
You reminded me of Tibetan sky burials. Along similar lines, the act of dismembering a corpse and feeding it to vultures can be considered disgusting. However, this raises the issue of the worth attached to the human body in various cultures. I think the Western approach is a lot more ‘attached’ as opposed to just seeing it as a shell. So the problem with necrophilia is that the corpse is still considered by many to be a ‘person’ capable of being harmed, regardless of the fact that the body will never again be conscious.
You could make an argument based on property rights. That is, after my death my body is still my private property just as my other belongings. I’m interested to hear the argument against that…
Alex — I guess the argument against the property rights is that after death there is no you to have ownership of your body. Of course this isn’t different to leaving an inheritance.
Jordan — eating dog poo is legal (as it should be) but I wouldn’t want to do it myself. And yes, if I was paid enough (eg. millions that could help many people) I’d sell the body of a loved one.
In terms of organ donation I meant to talk about the 2 as mutually exclusive. If the person just died and can still be used for organs then there’s a harm argument to be made that the body needs to go to a hospital not a necro — only if it’s useless does the second case apply. But even in this case, there’s more benefit if the body goes to a teaching hospital.
Re: Michael
In order to sell the body, you first would have to “own” it– and no one can own a cadaver. There are certain rights to posession, but not to ownership: therefore, a corpse can be held on to but not bought and sold.
There is a loophole though– I know that plastinated corpses can be sold to medical institutions and labs– but only 20-30% of what is left after plastination is actually human tissue: the rest is plastic.
Hi Amanda
I was talking based on the presumption that the cadaver is a thing of value and so there’s no reason for it not to be inherited along with the rest of the estate for the estate-holder to dispose of as they see fit. I guess regardless of the current state of the law, I think this is what *should* happen based on my arguments above.
I just want to thank you for all the info you’ve given me a all of your topics. I have a large-scale goal in mind and I needed a lot of views on ethical logic. I thank you for your willingness to speak and the logic to do it intelligently
What large-scale goal?
“the cadaver is a thing of value and so there’s no reason for it not to be inherited”
This is not true. The laws in place regarding the disposal of bodies exist in the interests of public health similar to laws regarding toxic waste or other forms of medical waste. The bodies must be sent to a proper disposal facility in order to prevent inappropriate disposal from contributing to the spread of disease. This is also why a mortician is required to have a license. A plastinated corpse has its organic material sealed and is thus rendered harmless. So really the issue under law is basically this: Person inherits a hazardous material. The law does not consider person to have the skills and certifications required in order to safely take possession of said material. Person can influence where the material goes to some extent, but can’t ignore safety regulations that prevent him or her from actually handling the material.
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