h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This has been bugging me for ages (don't ask me why, I don't know but it scares me)
Is cannabalism legal if you don't actually kill the person you're eating (Say they fell down a ladder and cracked their skull)?

Wow! What a question.

I guess it depends on who owns the body. People assume that it is the next of kin, but in the UK at least, it isn't. The next of kin *I think* have a duty to bury or cremate it, but I know they don't own it.

Lady Astor, or Lady Redesdale, or some other mad 1930s grande dame ate her own appendix, (after it had been removed) because she wanted to taste human flesh.

Perhaps I could draw your attention to this web page. It's not for the squeamish, and the cannibalism bit is about halfway down
http://members.tripod.co.uk/origins/supplement/greg.html

Self cannabalism is one thing, (but your own foreskin?!) It's this whole matter of someone elses corpse that's the problem. It also throws up new questions, such as can I leave my corpse to anyone OTHER than medical science?

It's generally regarded that cannibalism is acceptable 'in extremis'. That is, if the other person is already dead, and eating them is all that stands between you and dying of starvation, it's OK for you to eat them. (Whether it's legal is an entirely different matter.) Even the Roman Catholic church will accept such action. There was a case back in the 70s where a plane crashed in the Andes and the survivors kept themselves alive (for a few days, I think) by eating the people who had died in the crash. In a situation where everybody's alive but they have no food, some people have resorted to drawing lots to determine who gets eaten. This has also been regarded as acceptable. It's only unacceptable if one of the people was murdered (i.e., did not consent to be killed and eaten).

I know this doesn't answer your question. The straight answer to that one is, 'I don't know'. I would say it's definitely *illegal* if you murdered the person you were eating, but that's mostly because of the murder aspect. Even if it's legal, a lot of people would have trouble coping with the idea. They would wonder why you would want to eat another human being when there's plenty of 'normal' food about.

As far as English law goes there is no specific criminal offence of cannibalism, but there are other bits of law that definataly mean you couldn't do it without doing something illegal.

You can't steal a body because you cant take it away from itself, it is self owned. You can posses someone elses body, but you can't own it. Cannibalism (including conspiracy to commit) would come under the common law offence of "outraging public decency". This is the same bit of law used to deal with grave robbers etc.

It is not possible to leave your own body to someone else for them to eat because they would fall fowl of the Anatomy Act of 1984 and other bits of add on law such as the Anatomy Regulations of 1988. These make any useages or possession of a body illegal except for those specified by the legistlation such as post mortems, medical science, organ donations, funeral undertakers etc etc,,,,Its quite a long list, and even then you need a government licence to do these things legally. Cannibalism definataly is not on the list of legally licencable things you can do with a body and is therefore illegal.

If you are curious about the taste (I prefer not to think about it too much myself) then try some Pork. We use Pork to train our human remains detection and search & rescue dogs because it is the nearest to human flesh,, so I'm told. The Deamon Barber of Fleet Street (Sweeny Todd) passed his victims to a local pie maker for disposal. She happily sold "Pork" pies for quite some time without customer complaints, untill someones fingernail turned up that is.

A bit long winded, but I hope this answers your question?
Best regards, Norman.

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street never existed, he was created as a horror-story for a Victorian newspaper.
Why don't you resolve the problem of whether it's right to kill animals before you get to humans? I bet there're some vegetarians out there...

I didn't know that about the demon barber of fleet street, seems I learn something new every day. As for the question about animals, I don't know the answer to that one either. Thanks, Norman.

That's the point Aurora, I'm not talking about KILLING humans, I'm just talking about eating them.

What does the Anatomy Act etc. mean?

In England the law is made by "Act" of parliament. In other words the govenment takes action on an issue and passes a set of laws known as an Act, in this case the Anatomy Act. So, the Anatomy act is law. The act itself is far too big to try and copy out here and in any case is covered by Crown Copyright.

Sweeney Todd, the 'Demon Barber of Fleet Street', did exist. I have a book about him at home, which I'll try to remember to check the title of when I get back tonight. It wasn't the presence of a finger-nail that did for him and his female accomplice. It was the smell of the decomposing bodies. He'd dug some tunnels to a nearby church and stashed any surplus bodies underground. Sweeney Todd was tracked down and caught by the 'Bow Street Runners', the forerunners (excuse the pun) of the Metropolitan Police.

I know of sect that abides somewhere in Indonesia. The cult comprises of nuns headed by a mother superior. When the Mother Superior dies the others put her in a big pot and cook her. She is then devoured in order for the others to absorb some of her soul. I have been lucky enough (I think) to have seen the photos. As far as I know no nuns have been arrested for this.

I must say that the whole Editorial team is fascinated by this conversation!

We just what to know why Fat Mammoth is asking this?

Human flesh smells like pork when cooking and tastes like chicken ... so I'm told!

Just an update concerning my previous statement. I would like to apologise for the untruth that was contained within and would therefore like to correct the error:

She was Barbequed not boiled

After re-examining the photo I have come to realise than she is more crunchy than soggy.

Sorry for the inconvenience

Niz

To add to Tigerlilys point I would like to add that apparently the tastiest part of the human body when cooked is the hand (especially between the thumb and forefinger). Human on the bone anyone?

What about buttocks? I watched a film based on the air disaster where the basketball team (was it basketball or football?) crashed in the mountains and to survive they ate the ones that died. They started on the buttocks if I remember rightly.

It was a football team. The story was told in a book, and later in a film, called "Alive".

As for starting on the buttocks, these often contain fat. Fat is essential to the body's digestive system for breaking down meat. Survivors of ship-wrecks who have resorted to cannibalism when on the verge of starvation often don't do well when they start to eat their comrades. This is because the dead people have lost a lot of their body fat, which makes it harder for the survivors to extract any nourishment from them.

On the subject of surviving disasters where you end up without food, you stand a better chance if your body naturally has a certain amount of fat. You have more reserves to use up before starvation sets in. On the other hand, if your fellow survivors decide to resort to cannibalism, they may decide that you're the best option (if they know about the body fat thin).

I thought it was a rugby team - not that it really makes any difference except perhaps there is more meat on a rugby player!

I'm just visualizing myself chomping on a rugby players ass....MMMMmmm