By Jo Nova

Next step: sustainable human steak?

They don’t mention the “sustainable” word, but you know they want to. Right from the start they’re selling it to us:

Ethically, cannibalism poses fewer issues than you might imagine. If a body can be bequeathed with consent to medical science, why can’t it be left to feed the hungry?

Why can’t we feed our bodies to the homeless indeed, apart from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions, parasites, heavy metals? And if cannibalism pops up on the menu often enough, who knows what other problem will pop up on the radar? Things at the top of the food chain (and we are at the top) tend to accumulate all kinds of unwanted chemicals, like lead, PCBs, and pollutants.

Not to mention the spiritual questions and the mental health issues. Who knows? Relatives might feel a bit miffed if Aunty Betty was carved up for canapes and offered up to the crowd at the local alcoholics shelter.

Welcome to dystopia. We can devalue human lives, but think of the cows we’ll save!

And the CultureWar continues

Tut. Tut. Tut. New Scientist gently chides us for being the sort of modern prejudiced people […]