Compassionate Cannibalism

Various media reported on an online campaign calling on people to “donate any part of their body” to a new cannibal restaurant. They also advertised for an “open-minded surgeon.”

Oooooookay?!

This is assuredly an online p.r. stunt for something or other but it got me thinking, “Why not cannibalism?” Seriously. Many of the same arguments made in the defense of things like abortion, the legalization of drugs, and homosexual marriage could be used to legalize cannibalism.

If the sole arbiter of legality is the consent of adults, why not cannibalism?

Couldn’t you imagine the libertarian argument that if a restaurant is willing to pay for body parts or is simply asking for donated body parts, what’s the legal problem? Nobody would be forced to sell or donate body parts so it would simply be a free market.

If people have an absolute right to do with their bodies whatever they want as is often argued, don’t they have a right to decide what they want to do with their limbs and body parts? If people have the right to kill themselves why shouldn’t they also have the right to donate a few measly toes or limbs.

The right to privacy which has been extended to the slaughter of millions of unborn human beings in America alone should certainly allow for the donation of a little arm, leg, or fingers. Shouldn’t such a decision be left between a person and their chef?

In fact any laws prohibiting cannibalism could be shouted down by the ACLU using the same arguments they already use. I can already hear people chanting “Keep the government out of our restaurants!!!”

Any church officials speaking out against cannibalism would be told “Keep your scapula off my scalpel.” (I may need to improve that one but you get the gist.) Restaurants will be added to the list of rooms that God is no longer allowed in right behind bedrooms and classrooms.

Legalizing cannibalism now would prevent all the deaths and injuries from back alley cannibalism. Keeping it illegal will only make the gangs that run body parts even more powerful and violent. Taxing a legalized cannibalism could save Social Security even.

Animal rights activists argue that humans are just the animals at the top of the food chain. This just allows the “food chain” to become a clever name for a new kind of chain restaurant. (Think I should patent this? If there are any cannibalistic restaurateurs reading this, I thought of it first!)

People have cosmetic surgeries all the time and have pieces of themselves removed, shaved, discarded, and sucked out of them. It’s wasteful to allow these body parts to go to waste when there are people starving around the world. Couldn’t something like this go a long way towards solving world hunger? Come on, get over your prejudices. California alone could support a few open minded third world countries. This could be the ultimate in “compassionate cannibalism.” Those standing against it would be declared to not care about the poor. Alms for the poor could become arms for the poor in an advertising campaign. The PSA could star some big Hollywood star saying they would give their right arm to cure hunger.

It seems that we as a society already accept many of the arguments laid out in defense of abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, and prostitution so the only thing keeping cannibalism at bay is that it’s currently distasteful; an accepted prejudice. But I fear that there’s little standing between us and cannibalism but a litigious cannibal.