X-Message-Number: 1396
Date: 04 Dec 92 02:07:02 EST
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: CRYONICS

To: Kevin Brown
 
Re: What a Board Can Do 
 
Keith Henson seems to think I am expecting too much, asking 
Alcor's board members to address the problems he cites. As I 
understand it, the first step toward resolving any MAJOR 
issue at Alcor is for a board meeting to vote on a policy or 
general course of action. Once a policy has been established, 
an appropriate employee or volunteer or outside contractor 
can be commissioned to do the work. (In the case of a minor 
problem, we would expect an Alcor employee to address it 
without prior board approval. I agree it may be helpful to 
throw out an appeal for assistance here in such cases.) 
 
Since I am neither an employee nor on the board, I hardly see 
that it's up to me, as a member, to run out and read books 
about preventing earthquake damage, or the law regarding 
animal experiments, while Alcor has no announced policy on 
these subjects. I also think it would be presumptuous of me 
to assume that I am the person whom the board or the CEO 
would want to handle the job. 
 
I do see some point in non-employee, non-board members such 
as Steve Harris posting messages about urgent matters such as 
earthquake damage, since this is a way of asking the board 
(or Alcor employees) to take up the matter. They, after all, 
are the ones who have the power to act. It's not the same 
thing at all when a board member asks cryonicists at large to 
tackle some substantial issues which he has not (so far as I 
know) tried to clarify in conjunction with his fellow 
directors. This seems strange to me. 
 
 
Re:Autopsies 
 
I appreciate Mr. Lubkin's concern about the threat of 
autopsy. I'm sure we all share it. But if he hasn't had any 
suggestions about "What to do," this is surely because no one 
knows what to do. Coroners have huge amounts of discretionary 
power, and have been known to violate strong (recognized) 
religious beliefs expressed vehemently by family members. Why 
should cryonicists think they have a better chance of 
changing the status quo than, say, orthodox Jews? 
 
Since a fundamental tenet is that "dead" people have no human 
rights, I see no basis be for any legal argument in favor of 
restricting the activities of coroners. It seems to me that 
the first step is to achieve a reallignment of public 
attitudes toward death. After that, there should be much more 
hope for a revision of the law (though the law usually lags 
behind public opinion by at least a decade). In short, I 
think efforts to revise the law are probably futile at this 
point, and popularizing cryonics is the number-one job. 
However, since I know much more about popularizing things 
than I do about fighting legal battles, I am obviously 
biased. 
 
Ralph Merkle told me that he has made contact with his local 
coroner on a personal basis and has established that the man 
prefers not to autopsy. I would think that this kind of 
personal contact, if pursued diplomatically, is worth a lot 
more than a legal offensive which is liable to create enemies 
and negate any possibility of receiving special favors. 
 
Clearly, all the above statements are speculative. 
 
--Charles Platt

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1396