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DEL.ICIO.USA bill ‘relating to the distribution of unclaimed cadavers’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the bulletin boards in the state Capitol announced a ghoulish topic on Tuesday.
The Senate Public Safety Committee would meet to discuss a bill “relating to the distribution of unclaimed cadavers.”
First thought: This fight between state Sens. Eric Johnson and David Shafer to become the next lieutenant governor has turned into a gory, 3-D date movie.
Second thought: We had zombie legislators long, long before we had zombie banks.
But no.
Evidently, the funereal laws of Georgia will not allow the average Joe to keep spare — let’s say discarded — body parts. For most people, this is not an inconvenience. Dr. Frankenstein aside, they have all they need, even if such appendages are wrinkled, creaky or pocked like cottage cheese.
But down in Columbus, two organizations train dogs to sniff out the corpses of those killed in disasters. Two trainers asked Sen. Seth Harp (R-Midland) — hasn’t he been in the news enough lately? — to submit S.B. 38.
“You have to have an actual human body part to train the dog. Their noses are very, very sensitive. And having a human body part that is decaying, that gives off the smell — that’s how they train the dogs. Unless you do that, it doesn’t work. There’s no substitute,” Harp said.
S.B. 38 would permit certified groups to possess body parts and, presumably, hide them places far away from you and me. It was given the go-ahead by the Senate Public Safety Committee.
Photo credit: Richard Watkins/AJC
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