Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies

Zombies, Disability and Law

263 Zombies, Disability and Law Julia Gruson-Wood We must attend to both context and abstraction. (Wolf 1996, 5) Zombies are the least palatable variety of the undead.1 Although zombies and vampires are undeniably bound by the fact that they are both the living dead and share similar urgent , non-negotiable, gastronomic standards of various incarnations of cannibalism, where zombies and vampires “depart” is a matter of style, skin complexion, sex appeal and intelligence (among other things). Zombies do not look everlastingly youthful, they are not good in bed, they are not wise with five thousand years of undead living experience to draw from and they are definitely not personable. They will eat your arm, they will eat your brain, they will eat your baby and then you will assimilate. The classic zombie has no free will, no mental capacity, no 1 In this section, when I discuss zombies, I am discussing the dominant notion of them as being mindless flesh-eating creatures. This portrayal of “a zombie” is what I refer to as “the classic zombie.” Zombies, Disability and Law 264 language, no community. The classic zombie is a mass of moving rot, clad with multiple open wounds and an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Classic zombies are deemed by human culture as agents of hell: distributing chaos and initiating genocide . Although zombies can be identified as prime creatures in which to examine the spread of outbreaks and infectious diseases (Smith? 2009), they are the apocalyptic embodiment of disease in and of itself. Disease, in its most extreme form, reverses what was once a generative life into a rapid process of deterioration until death; it consumes sentience and agency; and, as an irresistible contagion, it consumes others. The paradox of “disease” is that the strongest diseases are those most resistant to cures, most susceptible to spreading and most successful in wiping out their hosts. Accordingly, as much as zombies are indeed the living dead, they are, more than anything, survivors. It takes a really strong species not to be killed by death. On the contrary, death is the only thing that makes zombies “come to life.” In a poignant symbolic sense, they are the representation of disease and a hyperbolic narration of the plagues that diseases wreak on human life. Since they are spawned through human death, zombies hold a particular relationship with human culture and life. And all stages of modern human existence are intrinsically bound up with, and contextualized through, systems of law. Just as zombies have been situated as uniquely relevant creatures in which to address, examine and learn about the possible existence of unknown outbreaks and infectious diseases (Munz et al. 2009), so too do they lend themselves well to acting as a module in which to expose the systemic underpinnings, the ethics, convictions and conventions that inform the relationship between law and human existence. This chapter addresses the legalities of zombies from within a legal context. In true zombie fashion, the chapter will be an act of chopping or bludgeoning three different bodies of knowledge: zombies, law and disability. To gnaw on the meat of these severed parts, the chapter is split into three sections. Zombies and Law: Requiem of a Cadaver The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 15 (1) and (2), asserts the following. Julia Gruson-Wood 265 (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, nation or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability (2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age or mental or physical disability This part of the chapter asks, if zombies existed as real creatures (un)living among us, which kinds of moral, ethical and sociopolitical issues would they bring forth to law (in this case Canadian law)? Where are zombies situated, what is their status , in relation to the legal system? Which responsibilities would the legal system have to the “lives” of zombies? And which challenges would zombies pose to various Western systems of law? For example, how does capacity and consent law apply to zombies? In Canada, the Health...