Death Without Dignity

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Think about these matters for a minute.

We are all encouraged to have a will - a document that directs how our property will be distributed or disposed of after we die. A person's right to control their property, even after death, is legally recognized and traditionally honored.

Most societies consider it important to treat the dead with respect. That includes, not only a deceased person's property, but also their physical remains. Desecration of a corpse is considered especially detestable. Abusing, mishandling, or improperly disposing of a corpse carries both civil and criminal penalties.

When it comes to organ donation (using a person's body and its parts after death), once again, we are encouraged to express our wishes prior to death. If a person has not given permission for their organs to be used by other people, then it is illegal to use those organs. In some cases, family members are permitted to grant permission ater the person's death, but, in any event, it remains illegal to take organs, or to use a body in medical research or experimentation, without proper permission.

Traditionally, grave robbing - taking a body out of its grave - is considered a particularly vile crime. In times past, professional grave robbers would supply freshly dead bodies to medical schools where they were dissected for the purpose of teaching anatomy and surgery. This practice was widely condemned, and laws were enacted to control the acquisition of cadavers and to ensure that bodies used in medical education would eventually receive a dignified burial or cremation.

Unfortunately, we now find ourselves living in a society where some people are no longer allowed the respect and dignity that comes with making one's own choices regarding the handling and use of the body after death. Specifically, there is a trend to treat women as less than fully human, a lower caste of beings who do not enjoy the same rights as men when it comes to basic decisions regarding their own bodies. For some time, there have been persons openly advocating for the use of female corpses in bizarre medical experiments. Until recently, one might expect that a woman, just like a real person, could choose to grant - or not - permission for her body to be used in research and experimentation, and that, in the absence of such permission, her remains would be handled and disposed of in accordance with her and her family's wishes. In the year 2025, this is not true.

A woman who happens to be pregnant at the time of death may end up as a sort of living corpse, her body connected to machines that force some of her organs to continue functioning, so that her body can be used as an incubator for the nonviable fetus that, under normal circumstances, would have died with her. This has just been done to the remains of a woman who did not give permission for organ donation or medical research, against the wishes of family members who wanted her to be treated with dignity.

As it happens, in this case, the mad-scientist experiment seems to have succeeded, in that an extremely premature infant, weighing less than two pounds, was extracted from the woman's body and placed in intensive care. Infants delivered at this stage have about a 10% chance of survival and, if they survive, are likely to face severe medical problems.

• Health concerns fror micro preemies