Is it ever tasteful/appropriate to show or release autopsy or post-mortem pics?

They make good training aids when teaching kids about drunk driving, almost as effective as making them observe an actual autopsy.

Never, ever tasteful. Appropriate? Depends on the circumstances.

It has its purpose when used by the authorities for trying to solve something, or for students and professionals in the medical field.
I’m not gonna say it doesn’t have other values. I’m sure it does. But as strange as it may seem coming from me, sometimes it really lacks class. I love rotten to no end, and while I don’t believe in censorship, sometimes I do wish some of that stuff was less accessible to the public, or at leas harder to get to, without knowing what you’re getting into. Some of that shit can be highly disturbing to people who might never need to see this for informational or educative purposes. I’m all for showing a buncha nasty shit, but it should come with something constructive to go along with it. Also, we should respect the dead. I remmeber a site that was linked on Fluther that showed dead children, with ’‘humorous’’ captions under the photos.
Now I said I liked rotten; and I do. They do have stupid captions, but at least, some information was offered about most pictures, how it happened and all. (although believe me, that site is more than ten years old, and has drastically dwindled in the past years) That other site didn’t. I have no idea if I have a point or not.
So, whether it’s ever appropriate or not, I do think that it should at least be just a little harder to access.

Ummm….. I think making autopsy and post-mortem pictures avaliable to the public is fine, as long as they don’t show the person’s face or identify the person. I mean, for high schoolers or college folk to see for the sake of science, or whatever, I don’t see any harm in it. Showing who it was or giving the name of who it was would be crossing the line, to me anyway.

@WillWorkForChocolate GA. A lot of the people are never identified, not too often anyways, but oftentimes, the face is shown. :/

@Symbeline Yeah, I just visited rotten.com for the first time and saw a crime scene picture of The Black Dahlia. Fascinating to me and you probably, but really shocking and disturbing for many others.

@WillWorkForChocolate Indeed. I don’t see much wrong with the subject, but I do think that some peeps need to tread carefully, even if it’s just pictures. And a lot of that should be up to the source to ensure.

I saw a picture this morning that just turned my stomache. I mean, isn’t there anyway to stop this, just because they’re celebrities?
The pic? No, it wasn’t an autopsy. It was Nancy Grace’s wardrobe malfunction.

I saw some yesterday related to people who go up in flames like candle wick. It was an explanation of what most likely happened to the gentleman who died over the weekend from “spontaneous combustion”. the pictures were from a long time ago.

I think the big difference is if the deceased is famous and the pictures are being shown for sensationalist purposes, or if a considerable time has passed and they are being show for informational purposes.