By: William A. Drennan*
Abstract
The “dead hand” can’t control what happens to the dead hand! You can direct where your property goes at death, but your cadaver is out of your hands.
Previously, the choice among cadaver disposition methods was binary—burial or fire cremation—not too exciting or controversial. Recently, the options have increased to include human composting, beheading and dissection, heating in a “pressure cooker of Drano” and dumping it all down the sewer, leaving the body exposed to the elements (and the insects) for weeks or months to study human decomposition, and a few more nightmare-inducing alternatives. In the future, the viable choices may expand to include chopping off the limbs, freezing the torso and dismembered parts, and then shaking everything violently into a powder. Today’s defilement may be tomorrow’s customary practice.
This is the first law review article to analyze providing a designated survivor with a financial incentive to follow the decedent’s basic cadaver disposition choice. If such a clause were enforceable, it would fundamentally shift the current decision-making process because the living have been able to exercise their discretion and call the shots. In responding to the likely challenge on public policy grounds, this Article considers philosophical, legal, practical, and other arguments for obeying a decedent’s basic cadaver disposition direction.
*Professor, Southern Illinois University School of Law. Member, American Law Institute. Partner and Associate, Husch, Blackwell, Sanders LLP (1985-2005). New York University School of Law, LL.M. (Executive) (2013); Washington University School of Law, LL.M. in Intellectual Property (2003); Washington University School of Law, LL.M. in Taxation (1997); St. Louis University School of Law, J.D. (1985). Professor Drennan practiced law full-time for twenty years in the areas of tax, estate planning, and business law. Special Thanks to Madelyn Hayward, Class of 2025, for her excellent research and editorial assistance, and special thanks to Tiffany Ketchum, J.D., and Amanda Reiter, J.D., for their excellent editorial assistance.