TRENTON – Legislation sponsored by Senators Barbara Buono and Joseph F. Vitale which would criminalize the harvesting and selling for profit of human remains was approved by the full Senate today by a vote of 39-0.
“We’ve seen perverse cases in recent news of opportunistic people plundering corpses and selling body parts to turn a quick profit,” said Senator Buono, D-Middlesex. “In these cases, after desecrating the corpses, they sell the body parts for transplantation or medical therapy, without any safeguard or proper medical screening. This bill is necessary, to protect patients from receiving unsafe transplantations and to assure families that their deceased loved ones’ corpses will not be desecrated.”