Free Republic

"There is something in us that wants to return to the Earth," terramation provider Return Home CEO Micah Truman said. Arizona has become the latest state in the nation to allow terramation, also known as human composting, as an alternative to traditional burial methods and cremation. House Bill 2081 and Senate Bill 1042, also referred to as the "Grandpa in the Garden Bill," was signed into law by Governor Katie Hobbs on March 29 and gives accredited funeral providers the ability to offer the service. While terramation has grown in popularity over the years, it has faced backlash from many,...

A group of Republican lawmakers are attempting to stop the Pentagon from taking out a Confederate monument belonging to Arlington National Cemetery.Led by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), the group of lawmakers penned a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday that demands he leaves the Reconciliation Monument, also known as the Confederate Memorial untouched until at least the conclusion of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process.The monument was set to be taken out by the Pentagon’s Naming Commission, a group formed to rename and remove military installations named after the Confederacy. This came in the wake of the 2020...

Researchers successfully transplanted genetically modified pig hearts into two recently deceased people connected to ventilators, the New York University team announced today. The surgeries are the latest step forward in the field of animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation, which has seen a flurry of successes so far this year — raising hopes for a new, steady supply of organs to ease shortages. The only thing different about these heart transplants from a normal human-to-human heart transplant was the organ itself, the research team said in a statement. “Our goal is to integrate the practices used in a typical, everyday heart transplant,...

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court. The Daily Sentinel reports that Megan Hess faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison after entering the plea Tuesday in Grand Junction. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. Hess, 45, and her mother, Shirley Koch, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal...

Wisconsin senators approved a bill earlier this week allowing dead bodies to be dissolved in a chemical bath and disposed like sewage. The bill, Senate Bill 228, authorizes a practice called alkaline hydrolysis, or “water cremation,” which liquifies the human body using a mixture of water, heat, and chemical agents, leaving only bones behind. The liquid is then dumped into the sewage system or boiled off, and bones can be crushed and deposited in an urn. The Republican-led Senate passed the legislation without debate on Tuesday over the objection of the Catholic bishops of Wisconsin.

KLICKITAT COUNTY, Wash. (KOIN) — Walt Patrick slowly rolls a giant wooden spool-shaped cradle back and forth. Inside, a human body is gradually being turned into compost, one of the first licensed “natural organic reductions” to be performed in the entire country. “This is simply another option at a time when people feel they have no options,” Patrick said. “You know, death has intervened and changed your life forever. How can you do something at least to make it the way you want?” Patrick is the senior steward at Herland Forest, a natural burial cemetery and nonprofit research center located...