Springfield at Work: State House Votes to Ban Necrophilia

Here’s one thing both Republicans and Democrats agree on: it’s wrong to become amoroush with the deceased.

The Illinois House has voted unanimously to approve a bill that makes necrophilia a Class 2 Felony. According to House Bill 5122, which passed 114-0 on Wednesday:

A person commits abuse of a corpse if he or she intentionally: (1) engages in sexual conduct with a corpse or involving a corpse; or (2) removes or carries away a corpse and is not authorized by law to do so.

Illinois never bothered to pass a ban on necrophilia because a) sex with a corpse such a disgusting act it didn’t seem necessary to tell people it was wrong, a b) people who engaged in necrophilia usually did it as part of some other crime. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Daniel Beiser, R-Alton, said he was inspired by a case in Madison County from the 1990s, in which a prosecutor charged a necrophiliac with criminal damage to property, which ranges from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class 2 felony, depending on the property’s value.

“When you think of that, you think of someone going … breaking a mailbox or something similar,” Beiser told Illinois Statehouse News. “We obviously understand that isn’t adequate, that anybody who abuses or mishandles a deceased just demeans the meaning of that person’s life.”

The bill now goes to the state senate, where it will also pass unanimously, and to the governor, who will sign it.

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