In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

28 A corpse in some respects is the strangest thing on earth. A man who but yesterday breathed and thought and walked among us has passed away. Something has gone. The body is left still and cold, and is all that is visible, to the mortal eye, of the man we knew. Louisville Ry. v. Wilson, 51 S.E. 24 (Ga. 1905) The mortal remains signify the history of that life in all its connections, especially with those to whom the person now dead was closely attached. Gilbert Meilander, Medical College of Wisconsin Listserv, 2006 Chapter 2 The Human Nature of a Cadaver Some people say that they don’t care what is done with their corpse. After all, it is just inanimate waste—crow bait or fly bait, depending on how much shelter is provided to the cadaver.1 Tell those people that their corpse will be tied to a jeep and dragged naked through the streets with a sign giving their name, after which their remains will be fed to the local farm animals. See if they are still indifferent to their postmortem treatment! The vast majority of people seem to care whether their remains will be mutilated, desecrated, or treated with honor and respect. Yet how can posthumous events—including those involving mistreatment of human remains—harm or benefit the dead? The live person no longer exists and can no longer sense any violations of the corpse’s integrity. One funeral director insists: “The central fact of my business [is] that there is nothing, once you are dead, that can be done to you or for you or with you or about you that will do you any good or any harm.”2 Why then do most people care so much about their postmortem treatment? Dead people have a variety of personal interests that can be affected by posthumous events. While harm to a person’s interests is ostensibly sensed only while the person is still alive, and while a decedent’s interests may be asserted only by live persons such as an executor of a will or The Human Nature of a Cadaver | 29 a surviving relative, American culture and law rightly recognize postmortem interests and even legal rights belonging to the corpse itself. (The next chapter focuses on those legal rights.) Social solicitude for these postmortem interests flows from the close association, both literally and figuratively, between the human decedent and his or her postmortem successor—that is, the cadaver. Perhaps the most obvious surviving interest is fulfillment of a decedent ’s wishes. In essence, a person’s interest in self-determination extends to prearranging events that will only occur postmortem—an interest I call “prospective autonomy.” This autonomy interest is recognized in the venerable tradition enforcing a person’s premortem wishes (as expressed in a will) in the postmortem disposition of that person’s property. People frequently leave testamentary instructions about the disposition of their property in the hope and expectation that these instructions will be implemented, and every state maintains a probate system for such implementation. Prospective autonomy applies as well to issues affecting the fate of human remains, including means of disposition . (Recall the putative wishes of Ted Williams and Anna Nicole Smith regarding disposal of their remains.) As chapters 3, 7, and 9 explain , prospective autonomy influences the fate of human remains not just as to mode and place of disposal, but also as to utilization of cadaver parts for research, teaching, transplantation to needy recipients, or even reproduction. The postmortem interests and rights of a cadaver extend well beyond fulfillment of the decedent’s instructions or preferences. Even if a decedent expresses no wishes about postmortem treatment, his or her cadaver receives a variety of entitlements and protections. Chapter 3 describes entitlement concepts such as decent disposal of a cadaver, quiet repose, and postmortem human dignity. “Corpses may still be honored or outraged, exalted or vilified, reverenced or debased.”3 Before we examine the scope of postmortem protections, however, let us consider the humanlike attributes that have earned a quasi-human protected status for cadavers. The human associations of the cadaver start with its physical and temporal connection to a decedent; the cadaver represents the continuing embodiment of a particular human being. People who have died “were loved, are loved, were bodies, are bodies.”4 The cadaver is the vessel that held a unique person and is still the most [3.133.131.168] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 10...

Share