2 replies to this topic

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 3418
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 94 15:43:39
From: Bridge Steve <steve@alcor.org>
Subject: CRYONICS Legal Status of Patients

The Legal Status of Cryonics Patients

An Introduction
By Stephen Bridge, President
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
November 3, 1994


*The General Problem*

There are no laws in the United States today that are specifically
aimed at cryonics or which mention it by name. That doesn't mean that no
laws APPLY to cryonics. Cryonics organizations, whether "full-service" or
specialized, must be aware of -- and often find ways to circumvent -- laws
intended to protect the public health from unburied or untreated corpses.
Laws permitting anatomical donations have been beneficial to cryonics but
pose their own set of problems. The funding of cryonic suspensions is
often trapped in a tangle of laws concerning trusts, tax-exemption, and
insurance policies. Eventually there WILL be laws which specifically
attempt to regulate cryonic suspension and other forms of biostasis.
Whether these laws are permissive or prohibitive will depend very much on
our understanding of current laws and on our ability to cooperate with (or
sometimes to outwit) elected and appointed government officials.

Today, cryonics suspension patients are legally dead. Not alive, not
in-between, but DEAD. How we as cryonicists think of our patients has
absolutely no influence on this label. We have to remember it is *merely*
a label, and labels can be changed. But until we can prove that cryonic
suspension patients have a high likelihood of being revivable, we have to
play the game from that viewpoint.

While this label of "dead" creates many problems for us, it also
leads to some advantages.

One very obvious advantage is that life insurance and various forms
of trust can be used to fund cryonic suspensions, with the suspending
company as beneficiary. This is very standard law, and has been used
successfully many times. Some future legal determination that suspension
patients were legally "alive" would lead to several years of chaos for
suspension companies. Would insurance companies pay the beneficiary if no
death certificate were presented? I suspect that eventually ways would be
found around this problem by the more honest (or at least more creative)
insurance companies, just as many companies have found ways to give pre-
death payments to terminal patients (especially those dying of AIDS).
Besides, if cryonics becomes popular (a good bet if we can show that it
works), there will be a lot of new customers for *some* form of insurance
funding.

Another advantage to the "dead" label for suspension patients is that
it allows Alcor and other cryonics companies to use the Uniform Anatomical
Gift Act (UAGA) to establish legal custody of the patients' "human
remains." Just as individuals are allowed to donate their bodies after
death to medical schools or their organs for transplant, they can also
donate their bodies to Alcor for "medical research." When accomplished by
a written pre-mortem declaration, this donation effectively removes the
ability of family members to "dispose" of the individual in some other
way. All 50 states use one of two basic forms of the UAGA (the
differences probably don't make much difference for custody of remains,
although they may make a subtle difference in states where patients are
*stored*). In addition, many states (including California and Arizona)
have very clear legislation which requires the state and the family to
respect individuals' choices as to disposition of their own remains. At
least three court cases in California have affirmed that these laws
protect an individual's right to choose cryonic suspension. In effect,
this means "dead people" have some rights.

The use of the UAGA has another benefit. Hospitals and medical
personnel are used to the paperwork involved in whole body donations and
to the requirement for rapid release of the body to the donee. Saying "we
are taking custody of this dead person because he donated his body to us"
still goes over better at the hospital than "you aren't good enough to
understand that this person is still alive, so we are going to do your job
for you by freezing him until someone smarter comes along."

Of course, labeling a suspension patient "dead" also creates a large
number of problems. Agencies which regulate funeral homes, cemeteries,
and mortuaries may not appreciate our semantic balancing act between life
and death and may assume we fall under their regulation. Cryonics
organizations in California were fortunate enough to escape this because
of an Attorney General's opinion published in 1980. But Alcor is
currently facing a similar problem in Arizona (see below).

Dead bodies are considered by most people to be empty husks, only fit
for discarding. The assumption has always been that death is the reverse
of life and that life cannot be reclaimed. While it seems clear to us
that this is likely to be untrue, we are forced to deal with the reality
that the close-minded are the ones in charge of society.

Someday a special status and a new label for suspension patients
(Don't-Know-Yets; The Undead; Deanimates; Metabolically Disadvantaged)
will be needed; but before then we will need to produce more research
showing why such a status is deserved.

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 3920
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 20:11:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <andro@nando.net>
Subject: Re: "Dead"



On Feb 26 Steve Bridge wrote: "The legal status of all cryonic suspension
patients is 'dead'."

That really doesn't surprise me.... As far as I know, not one of them
was put into suspension while still living; they all died first, and they
weren't resuscitated before suspension (or not intentionally).

Surely it's common enough these days for people to say "Joe actually died,
but they resuscitated him", and not feel that anything supernatural
occurred, for us *also* to be able to say "they died".

The idea may have been revolutionary 30 years ago. It's not
revolutionary any longer, it's common enough, but most people think of it
as science fiction.

So because the idea is common, we don't have to think about inventing new
terms to deal with it, or twisting the language so as not to scare
people. Those people who are going to be scared (and they're the
majority) are going to be scared no matter what. That's a separate
problem. Verbal contortions don't help, only cloud a very simple concept
and help hide it from people who would be receptive to it.

"When I die, I'm going to be frozen - eventually, they'll figure out a
way to bring me back to life." That seems the most honest way of
presenting things.

What *is* being redefined is, well, everything else; and only in part
because of the cryonics movement. Space travel, heart transplants,
access to all the world's religions and their practitioners, these are
causing redefinition of Life, Death, Soul, Heaven, Being, Purpose, Miracle,
etc etc.

So we don't have to shrink from saying "She's dead". It's no longer a
cut-and-dried concept (so to speak); death is an organic, fluid, unstable
concept, at least when mentioned in the context of hospitals, Emergency
Rooms, laboratories, and high-tech environments.

When someone says "He's dead", the old responses of "Oh no!" or "How
awful" or "What happened?" have recently been supplemented by "Can
anything be done?"

The concept of what 'dead' is, is already in flux. We don't need to play
word games.

Always opinionatedly,

Robin

[thefirstimmortal]

X-Message-Number: 3924
From: Ralph Merkle <merkle@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: Re: "Dead"
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 09:06:16 PST

Calling a cryonically suspended patient "dead" is a very bad idea,
as has been discussed frequently both here and elsewhere. Using
the term "legally dead" makes it clear that legal criteria, rather
than any fundamental or "true" criteria, have been used.

"Death," by definition, means "the final and irreversible cessation
of the vital functions of an animal or plant." Calling a frozen
patient "dead" means, by definition, that recovery is impossible.
Thus, to call someone who has been cryonically suspended "dead" is
to state that they cannot be revived. This is not what we mean,
not what we want to mean, and not what we should say.

Any attempt to explain cryonics by saying it "revives the dead,"
"restores the dead to life," "raises the dead," etc. etc. will
immediately conjure up a broad range of irrelevant and misleading
concepts, e.g., it moves into regions that are traditionally
religious, mystical, etc. The single most powerful argument in
favor of cryonics is that it can save lives -- by calling frozen
patients dead we undercut the most powerful argument we have in
our own defense.

The term "frozen" is a simple, accurate, and non-judgemental term for
a cryonically suspended patient. "Legally dead" is both accurate, and
makes it clear that the unqualified term "dead" might be inappropriate.

In practice, "death" usually means the point where society strips a
person of their personhood and relegates them to the trash heap. Almost
every legal or ethical systems recognizes the value of life and the right
to life. Almost no one recognizes a right to be raised from the dead,
and most view the very attempt as an act of hubris.

Words are important. We should not denigrate them. In any serious discussion
of cryonics it is essential to make it clear that the purpose of cryonics
is to save lives. And saving the lives of the dead is a logical contradiction.