Idaho lawmaker’s cannibalism bill sparked by prank show

Idaho Rep. Heather Scott, a Republican, introduces a cannibalism bill. (Screengrab via KTVB).

An Idaho lawmaker introduced a cannibalism bill Thursday she said would keep human flesh and bone out of the food supply — and it appears the legislator based her proposal on a reality show prank.

Rep. Heather Scott, a Republican, introduced a bill that would expand the state’s existing criminal cannibalism law to prohibit any person from “willfully provid[ing] the flesh or blood of a human being to another person to ingest without such person’s knowledge or consent.” Idaho’s cannibalism law already outlaws the willful ingestion of the flesh or blood of a human being.

The official statement of purpose of House Bill 522 states that the expanded law “has no fiscal impact,” because it “causes no additional expenditure of funds at the state or local level of government, nor does it cause an increase or decrease in revenue for state or local government.”

On the legislative floor, Scott said she had two reasons for introducing the bill: to prevent human composting, and to ensure that duping people into eating human material is not “normalized.”

“I know this seems a heavy topic,” Scott said as she explained her proposal, “It might seem kind of gruesome. It kinda is.”

First, Scott discussed the dangers of human composting.

“In 2019, I heard that Washington state was starting to do human composting, and that disturbed me,” she said. “So, I wanted to address this because what I didn’t want to see is bags of compost with human bone fragments.”

“I didn’t want to see that in my Home Depot stores,” Scott said.

In 2019, Washington became the first state to legalize “human composting” — an environmentally-friendly burial practice in which people can be buried without embalming, caskets, or headstones. Since then, other states have allowed “green cemeteries” as legal burial alternatives to traditional cemeteries. The practice does not involve either the bagging or the consumption of human remains, nor is composted human material used in food production; accordingly, it is unclear at best how Scott’s proposed legislation relates in any way to the practice.

Next, Scott moved on to warning that society is moving toward normalizing using human flesh as a culinary ingredient.

She said that on a flight, she “watched a video of some food show,” and that on the show, contestants were told that human flesh was a possible ingredient in the food.

“I thought — this is going to be normalized at some point,” Scott said. “The way our society is going, and the direction we’re going, this is going to be normalized.”

“There is a lot of documentation out there,” Scott insisted. “If you just google it, people showing it, and how they’re doing it.”

In reality, according to the Idaho Statesman, the video Scott saw was not footage of anyone ingesting human flesh. Rather, it was an almost decade-old episode of comedian David Spade’s prank show “Fameless,” which uses improv comedy to test “how far real people will go to be famous.” Participants on the show are led to believe they have been cast on a reality show, then subjected to outrageous conditions by improv performers. In a 2015 episode, a contestant was served a sausage by a chef who claimed the meal contained human flesh. A few moments later, the host informed the relieved contestant that she was part of a prank for Spade’s comedy show.

The Idaho Statesman reported that Scott sent the news organization a link to the clip from the TV show as well as a link to a hoax story about a Chinese official denying his country had sold canned human flesh to people in Zambia. She also allegedly cited a the case of an Idaho man, initially charged with cannibalism, who pleaded guilty to murder. The cannibalism charge was dropped.