Legality of cannibalism?

Soldato
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Ok, so we've started an interesting debate in my thread which I felt would be interesting to expand into GD.

Basically is it actually illegal to eat humans?

Before people say of course, from research so far it suggests that actually it may not actually be illegal.

Clearly if you kill someone to do it you can be charged with murder.
If you dig someone up you can be charged with disturbance of the peace.
If you assist in suicide you can be charged with such.
Notably if someone cuts into themselves, and doesn't die - so you cause no harm, there is no legal coverage of what you can do in the uk, so it isn't technically illegal.

Taken from this. Would cannibalism be illegal if:
The person commits unassisted suicide.
They give permission for their body to be eaten post humorously

However weird that sounds, is it technically illegal?

I mean it is clearly not recommended, however if someone can give permission to have their body mummified on national television, then I can't see what is wrong with giving permission for this is you really want to...

kd
 
I've looked into this briefly in the past (can't believe my law school doesn't offer a cannibalism and the law class tbh!) and I discovered that you were right. There are many laws which you can contravene in the act of cannibalism and what happens before/after it but the actual act of eating flesh wasn't illegal iirc.
 
Not debating that one. It was just an odd conversation that came up in my flat. These type of conversations are actually quite common in my flat. One of my flat mates is a bio-med student and finds this stuff vaguely interesting...

kd

Can I suggest you never, ever eat anything that is in a jar in the fridge but not clearly labelled by a store/brand...
Just in case your flat mate ever decides to bring his work home.
 
It's not technically illegal no. Providing, in the case of eating a part of a dead person that the death was caused naturally. iirc.
 
Surly some of the laws on dealing with human corpses makes it illegal through the fact you can't obtain the flesh.

However if you had an operation and got the flesh of the doctor (probably against H&s regs) then there isn't any specific laws dealing with it. But as said you would almost certainly break other laws obtaining the flesh.
 
Dan... why would you know that?!

nom nom nom.

No I think I remember it from a case in the Victorian era where cannibalism was involved but in that case they looked at necessity and the issue wasn't the cannibalism it was the murder. it established that necessity never justifies murder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens

It's used quite often in morality lectures I believe.
 
I guess its like slavery (until recently) or prostitution - there are just laws banning lots of the associated activities.
 
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