It would be funny if some bozo from the local Skeptic Club (TM) could defend the necessity of grave-robbing, organ-harvesting and a vast trade in human skeletal remains (see previous blog post).
He could say something like this:
"Well, actually...it´s just religious superstition to oppose use of dead human bodies on a MASSIVE scale in scientific research. The humans are already dead, dead men can´t feel pain, nor can they rise, indeed, they are *by definition* not even conscious, so how can the question of consent even arise in this situation?"
"Nor can the relatives claim the body. That´s just cheap sentimentalism, probably also rooted in religious notions. No, science has the RIGHT, the right I say, to a neverending supply of bodies both fresh and old, in various stages of decomposition, and no amount of woo or flim flam about "souls", "spirits" or "ghosts" can hold us back."
"Rational planning and resource-management practically *demands* that people killed in wars, famines and natural disasters become harvestable resources for the benefit of the living. And, in particular, of Science. People dying of pandemics are especially interesting in this regard."
"It would be an enormous vaste, Mr Speaker, to let these resources go to waste. Facts don´t care about your feelings, und so weiter. Everyone already agrees that it´s proper to do research on aborted fetuses, not to mention pre-dead non-human animals, so why should there be a difference in this case. This is no different from mineral wealth extraction, and indeed, more research should be done on non-medical uses of recently deceased bodies of the species Homo sapiens, including fertilizer, food additives, soap, clothing, jewelry, and so on."
"Everything else is Communism and rank Primitivism, and will surely take us back to the Stone Age. Or at the very least the 1970´s!"
With apologies to Jonathan Swift.
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