I really want to write my thoughts about the whole business of dying in America. I refer to it as state sponsorship of domestic terror when county government requires that every person that dies be subjected to an autopsy– a gruesome procedure that results in mutilation and disfigurement of the deceased.
It is an appalling practice in a society that considers itself affluent and well educated. Also, it rings of hypocrisy in a country that speaks volumes about human freedom and rights and such euphemisms. Such procedures are explained as necessary tools to determine cause of death and that are performed by medical examiners or coroners. But regardless of the reasons the practice is horrific and is best suited for a barbaric society. Hollywood could not dream up of a more gruesome and barbaric practice than is practiced on all deceased in the country. And once the autopsy is completed then the cadavers are subjected to yet a second layer of injustice and mutilation and that is when the funeral directors take over.
The funeral industry that is a multibillion dollars one mostly has complete and total control over the millions of people that die annually. And it is an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds. The industry that has basically succeeded in bamboozling the American public into believing that it is right and proper and the right thing to do. The industry that sells products with a huge markup and that are not necessary except that it has surreptitiously convinced the bereaved of the absolute need to buy their expensive goods and services.
And the most appalling service that the funeral industry provides is the embalming process, and that essentially completes the mutilation that was started by the county coroner, a truly brutal and sadistic process. Of course the public is shielded from ever having to deal with the process or in having any say in the practice. Again, the embalming process succeeds in mutilation of the deceased.
Okay, so you may say that what is the big deal? Why make any fuss about the treatment of the dead? True, the deceased do no suffer pain nor otherwise care one way or the other. And you may have a point that I am simply over sensitive about the matter. You may also argue that the medical examiner provides a useful service to ascertain the cause of death of our loved ones.
I find it an appalling practice because family pets would never be subjected to such barbarism if the practice were to be performed on their carcasses or dead bodies. The practice might also point to the height of degradation of a society that ignores the homeless and destitute, so why would such a society bother about the dead?
And yes I find it a horrific practice and a practice that even the worst dictators never performed on its victims. Those victims were at least disposed of whole and were not mutilated through the process of autopsy and embalming. But for a society that condones such a sad practice on its’ own loved ones is appalling. I may yet have to endure the practice on my remains, so although I am writing an article condemning the practice I may still suffer the same inhumane treatment one day.
All said, I wanted to write a detailed description of the autopsy and the embalming process, but I find the subject most disturbing and possibly one that you the reader would find objectionable.
The worst part of the story is that the funeral industry has the last laugh. Because the public is sold a bill of goods that are exorbitantly expensive and unnecessary and in the end do not help the cadaver in any possible manner. The embalming process preserves the body of the deceased just long enough for the funeral but not much longer after that.
What more is there to say on the subject? It is a sad commentary about a time and place in history. In the middle ages people were often burned at the stake and society condoned it as a normal course of day to day business.