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8 Wake Forest J. L. & Pol'y 149 (2018)
Basic Cremation

handle is hein.journals/wfjlapo8 and id is 153 raw text is: BAsIc CREMATION PHILIP R. OLSONt If no one asks me, I know: what it is. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not. -Saint Augustine T echnological innovation can disrupt shared cultural mean- ings, making difference and disagreement explicit where con- sistency and agreement were presumed. Funerary alkaline hydrol- ysis (AH) is one such technological innovation, and it has dis- rupted United States death care culture in several ways. In addi- tion to increasing attention to the negative environmental impacts of contemporary funeral and disposition practices, AH has chal- lenged the bases and boundaries of funeral professionals' exper- tise2 and invigorated public discourse about the ethics of human disposition.' In popular online and print media, public debates about AH tend to focus on ethical interests about whether AH ought to be legalized and regulated as a funerary technology over which funeral professionals and state funeral boards have jurisdic- tion.4 Detractors generally argue that AH is an undignified means of disposition, while AH defenders consistently cite the technolo- gy's purported environmental advantages over other disposition t. Phil Olson is a technology ethicist in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. His current projects include work on civilian UAS (drone) technologies, biotechnologies, and funerary technologies. He is currently working on a book about the women-led home funeral movement in the United States. 1. SAINT AUGUSTINE, THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE 332 (Edward Bouverie Pusey trans., Floating Press 2008). 2. Philip Olson, Custody of the Corpse: Controlling Alkaline Hydrolysis in US Deathcare Markets, in DEATH IN A CONSUMER CULTURE 75, 75-88 (Susan Dobscha ed., 2016). 3. Philip Olson, Flush and Bone: Funeralizing Alkaline Hydrolysis in the US, 39 SCI. TECH. & HUM. VALUES 666, 680 (2014). 4. See generally, e.g., Amy Joi O'Donoghue, Thumbs-Up for 'Green' Disposal of Human Remains, DESERET NEWS (Feb. 24, 2017, 4:00 PM), https://www.deseretnews.com/article/ 865674204/Thumbs-up-for-green-disposal-of-human-remains.html; Nick Stockton, The Fight to Legalize a Machine that Melts Flesh from Bone, WIRED (Mar. 10, 2017, 7:00 AM), https://www.wired.com/2017/03/bath-turns-dead-bodies-coffee-colored-water/.

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