Why Would Consuming Fetuses Be Wrong?

Over the years I have had people send me stories on aborted fetuses being consumed in China as a delicacy or a medicine. I haven’t gone with it because I wasn’t clear on the credibility,and because the idea seemed too revolting and sensationalistic. I’m still very uncertain, but now China is apparently going to conduct an inquiry. From the ever useful Bioedge  

http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/9397 :

China’s Health Ministry is taking the gruesome story of aborted babies ground into powder and used as aphrodisiacs seriously enough to launch an official investigation. SBS, one of the three major national television networks in South Korea,broadcast a documentary earlier this month about capsules from China containing dead baby flesh. According to SBS, the powder was made from aborted or stillborn babies whose bodies were dried in a medical microwave and then pulverised.

Even if the story is true, what’s the big deal? Assuming no lives were taken for this purpose, but that it was just dead flesh when the cannibal pill producers obtained the raw material, why the worry? Or does how we treat the dead impact on how we perceive the living? Does the near universal proscription against cannibalism promote respect for the unique value of human life—that continues even beyond life? Because if we ever come to believe that all we really are is meat on the hoof, the taboo against cannibalism will also eventually fall. Then, it would just be a new form of recycling.