Idaho Lawmaker Says Human Composting Could Lead to Cannibalism

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 127 points – Idaho Lawmaker Says Human Composting Could Lead to Cannibalism
thedailybeast.com

An Idaho state representative wants to build out the state’s law against cannibalism over fears that the composting of human remains could lead to humans consuming other humans.

Republican Heather Scott floated a bill on Thursday that would make it illegal to serve “the flesh and blood of another human being” to someone who does not know or consent to it, The Idaho Statesman reports. Idaho already outlaws cannibalism and is the only state to do so, even though other states have laws that punish abuse of corpses.

Human composting is legal in some states because it can be more eco-friendly than other methods like cremation. But rather than target composting, which would require a rewrite of rules for morticians, Scott figured it would be easier to expand the cannibalism law.

She was apparently inspired by a clip from a prank TV show she had seen, in which personalities pretended to feed people human flesh in sausage links. “They didn’t tell the people, they fed it to them,” she told the Statesman.

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I mean, honestly, the only thing standing between me and cannibalism are some local regulations.

I had a friend in college who always said " The worst thing I could say is that I'd kill you and not eat you." Somehow this was endearing and disturbing all at once. I do hope she's doing well.

I hope we all have someone out there who thinks of us with this level of genuine fondness precisely because of how weird we are.

if you're not going to eat me at least fuck me do a Weekend at Bernie's

Personally I practice catch and release. Much more ethical.

She was inspired by a fictional TV prank show she watched. WHAT THE FUCK

Welcome to the hell of living alongside the Republican Party. Don't try to make it make sense, you'll only hurt yourself.

I literally went crazy trying to make sense of everything when I was younger. I’m hopping in twenty more years I- tidal collapse? Never mind then.

Why do republican politicians always oppose the greener option? This doesn’t even threaten oil interests.

The greener option almost always represents change. The funeral business is very large, and probably one of the least ethical businesses around. They take advantage of grieving people and charge them way too much money to be filles with preservatives and stuck in the ground. It's a big business, and change is bad for existing business, though it'll create all new businesses that take advantage of those people.

In fact, if this lawmaker was being paid by some funeral industry lobby, I wouldn't be even a little surprised.

Knowing Republicans, Heather Scott has been craving some strange meat.

Well if that’s true then 99%+ of people are cannibals lol.

100%. Even the ones who aren't breast-fed (which is sort of cannibalism if you think about it).

I mean the only issue I can think of with human composting is maybe potential prison diseases if the compost is used to farm food.

The risk of prion diseases are low. Prions are proteins and do biodegrade. The product of composting is dirt, which we -normally- don't eat, which lowers the risk even lower.

This Canadian study found a low risk of BSE (aka mad cow disease) after composting BSE infected biomaterials. They concluded that it's a viable option for disposal of such waste.

This is me, a reasonable normal human person, expecting something useful to be said by a republiQan.

As long as it remains legal for me to eat my leg if I ever need it amputated, I'm fine with it

I want the skin of mine as the binding of a book. And the contents of the book will be a novel I commission about the amputation of my leg.

So I guess the obvious conclusion is that she considers compost delicious? Why else would she make that connection?

as long as my good donor organs are already put to good use i don't fucking care which organisms break my body down.

but also this is a republican lawmaker lying stupidly, which is the core skill set for that job