
You Can't Keep Your Relatives' Skulls - pshaw
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/why-you-cant-display-your-relatives-skull/597307/
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michaelt
I live in the UK and a few years back I looked into whether my body could be
converted into one of those cool articulated skeletons on my death.

It turns out there's currently a huge oversupply of articulated skeletons in
the UK, as the "Human Tissue Act 2004" [1] means (tldr) you now have to have a
license to own one. An amnesty means the few institutions that have such
licenses have more skeletons than they can possibly use.

Apparently as many as 8 a week are dropped off, grinning from the back seat
and enjoying their day out.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Tissue_Act_2004](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Tissue_Act_2004)

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justinclift
> “I will argue with you all day long,” she told me, “that it isn’t legal in
> any state in the United States to reduce a human head to a skull.”

If that's the case, then how do Skulls Unlimited (US based company) do their
thing?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skulls_Unlimited_International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skulls_Unlimited_International)

They've been around for 30+ years, and reduce human heads to skulls.

~~~
_archon_
They may purchase previously-reduced skulls and profit on arbitrage.

~~~
justinclift
The wikipedia page shows part of their setup for reducing heads to skulls,
using the beetles mentioned in the article.

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wodenokoto
It appears not to be impossible in Europe.

A common "Today I learned"-frontpager on reddit is about composer
Tchaikowsky's skull, which was donated to be used in Hamlet, described on
Wikipedia here:

After reading TFA I wonder how they got him deboned.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Tchaikowsky#Skull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Tchaikowsky#Skull)

~~~
lostlogin
Deboned or defleshed?

~~~
wodenokoto
Well, either way you are gonna separate bones from flesh.

But I guess deflected is the right term in this context

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jfengel
I'm a bit disappointed to hear that. There is a magnificent plotline on the TV
show Slings and Arrows, attempting to get a friend's skull made into a prop
for use as Yorick in Hamlet. That's based on real life: various skulls are
passed down in the theater tradition as possibly belonging to famous
actors[1]. (On the show, they ended up using a disreputable taxidermist.)

I had a vague notion that some day my own skull might become part of the
properties of my own theater troupe. It's probably a very bad idea and it's
more than half a joke, but it's a bit disappointing to hear that it's not
really possible.

[1]
[http://www.borrowers.uga.edu/782717/display](http://www.borrowers.uga.edu/782717/display)

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dr_dshiv
Can't get frozen before death, either. I don't understand the legal principle
there, either.

~~~
gnode
The legal principle is simple: it make a person legally dead and so the
intentional act is murder. Unfortunately the law doesn't recognise the concept
that cryogenic preservation may not in effect kill a person in the long run.

On the other hand, if it were not regarded as killing, you may find healthy
people being preserved based on oversold promises of revival from cryonics
practitioners.

Perhaps the best compromise for the time being is to regard it as euthanasia,
and legalise that with some sensible safeguards. I wonder whether in any
countries where euthanasia is legal, opting for direct cryopreservation would
be permissible.

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wodenokoto
In a similar vein, Vsauce has a great video on the question of "Why Don't We
Taxidermy Humans?"

[https://youtu.be/L6S5amkCoyc](https://youtu.be/L6S5amkCoyc)

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amriksohata
Random and a bit related, Hindus crush their deads skulls and disperse the
ashes in the river

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JabavuAdams
Dammit! I didn't know this was a thing, but now I'm thinking about it.

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shkkmo
I wonder if these laws could be challenges under freedom of speech laws? Isn't
determine what is done with your body via will a final act of speech that
should be protected?

~~~
denton-scratch
Your Last Will and Testament is (AFAICT - IANAL) not really final.

* It can be challenged on the grounds that its provisions are unlawful. Leaving all your money to your cat might be an example.

* It can apparently be challenged on the grounds that it is unfair; deceased parents leaving their children destitute by leaving all their money to a pet-care charity might be an example.

* Many wills are deliberately couched in terms that are vague or confusing; this may be in the service of avoiding inheritance taxes, but it opens the way for challenges.

* There may be evidence outside the will itself that the testator has deliberately contrived his legacy so as to avoid his debts.

As far as I can see, your will is really just an expression of your
intentions. You can't enforce it (of course). If your executor egregiously
violates the express intentions of deceased, they can be sued by relatives.
But in general, executors seem to have considerable latitude; it is assumed
that, having been appointed by the deceased, they are reasonably familiar with
their intent.

Anyhow, I don't think your corpse is part of your estate; I don't think
executors can dispose of it in the same way they might dispose of land,
paintings and investments.

Incidentally, Freedom of Speech laws are quite rare. I don't know of any
country other than the USA that has constitutional protections for speech.
Certainly there is no legal protection for speech in the UK, other than the
vague principle that "anything that is not forbidden by law is permitted by
law".

~~~
shkkmo
> Incidentally, Freedom of Speech laws are quite rare. I don't know of any
> country other than the USA that has constitutional protections for speech.

I think freedom of speech is almost universally considered an inalienable
human right. It tends to be protected by international treaty obligations
(which usually have the force of law?). Wikipedia says:

>> Today, freedom of speech, or the freedom of expression, is recognised in
international and regional human rights law. The right is enshrined in Article
19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10 of
the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 13 of the American Convention
on Human Rights and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples'
Rights.

Regarding the UK, the English Bill of Rights protects free speech and I
believe it still has the force of law and is cited in legal cases.

~~~
claudiawerner
Freedom of speech is not given the same primacy as it is in the US in other
countries; while it is a right everywhere, for example the ICCPC you cited
also has Article 20:

>Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes
incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by
law.

Germany has even stronger caveats to freedom of speech. The US stands alone
(to my knowledge) in the way it treats freedom of speech because of the
wording and interpretation of the first amendment, which is why there is so
much debate in the field of first amendment jurisprudence and philosophy as to
what its limits _are_ and what they, in the views of many researchers, what
they should be. See Susan Brison's arguments on that point. Countries such as
the UK and Germany frequently allow concerns of discrimination, the silencing
power of speech, and other factors to override pure freedom of speech.

To my knowledge, the bill of rights only applies in England and Wales, and it
is extremely infrequently used, and hasn't been, to my knowledge, used to
protect freedom of speech (at least not any time recently).

