X-Message-Number: 148 From: Kevin Q. Brown Subject: Legal Status of Cryonics Date: 2 Jan 1990 The January 1990 Venturist Monthly News has a very interesting article concerning the legal status of cryonics, which I have appended below (with permission from the editor Mike Perry). Venturist Monthly News is the publication of The Venturists [ messages 44, 49, 52, 68 ], an organization "promoting manmade eternal life." A year subscription (12 issues) costs $8.00 US, $10.00 Canada, and $15.00 overseas, made payable to: The Venturists, POB 458, Wrightwood, CA 92397. By the way, the Venturists will be holding their first California meeting Sat. Jan. 6 at the Mountain View Lodge in Wrightwood, CA. Call (619) 249-3553 for details. - Kevin Q. Brown ...att!whscad1!kqb <- new email <- address ----- Amazing New Legal Development Venturist Monthly News, Vol. 2(1), Jan. 1990, #13 by Mike Perry (Editor) Very recently there has been an amazing development on the legal front. The action stems from the Dora Kent case, which involved the cryonic suspension of Dora Kent (mother of longtime cryonics activist Saul Kent) by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation on December 11, 1987. Mrs. Kent, an 83-year old bedfast woman suffering from severe dementia, was brought to the Alcor facility while still alive and died there. No physician was present when death occurred, though some of the Alcor staff had sufficient medical training to competently pronounce death. The cryonic suspension procedure was started promptly after death, and completed under better than usual conditions. (Normally death occurs under hospital conditions and there is some difficulty and delay while the patient is transferred out to the facility where the suspension can continue.) Since the suspension was done under unusual conditions, though, it resulted in a coroner's investigation, one consequence of which was that Alcor was apparently under threat of prosecution for "unlawful practice of medicine." To forestall such prosecution Alcor asked for injunctive relief on grounds that "such a threat of prosecution results in an impermissible chilling of the constitutional right of the Adherents to have their bodies receive direct physical ministrations before clinical death in order to achieve cryonic suspension of their remains." [Presiding Judge Robert J. Timlin's summarization, in the ruling handed down on this case. Other quotations in this article are from this document.[1]] The motion for relief was denied on grounds that the state has an overriding interest "to alleviate pain during any such suspension activities and to allow natural death during which period a competent adherent may change his or her mind regarding such suspension." This means that certain actions that would normally require a licensed physician would not be exempted from this requirement in the case of cryonic suspension. Whether such actions might have been performed on Dora Kent prior to her death, by non-physicians, would be a matter to be decided. (At least, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that bears up under scrutiny that she was physically harmed or that her death was unnaturally hastened, which considerably weakens any claim that wrongdoing occurred.) Thus the District Attorney (in Riverside County, California, where Alcor is located) may still prosecute if he so chooses, though at present there is no indication of any intention on his part to do so. (In fact, Alcor attorney Christopher Ashworth now considers such prosecution unlikely.) The 25-page ruling prepared by Judge Timlin attempts to address all the important issues bearing on this case. On page 11 there is an amazing paragraph that reads as follows (emphasis in the original): "This court concludes that the Adherents, including Dora Kent, under Article I, Section 1 of the California Constitution and the Fifth and Ninth amendments to the United States Constitution have a right to privacy, which includes the right to exercise control over his/her own body, and to determine whether to submit his/her body, or any portion thereof, including the brain, to PREMORTEM cryonic suspension. (In ruling on the application this court in no way comments directly or indirectly in the wisdom of such a choice.)" In one fell swoop, it seems, the constitutional right to be cryonically suspended is being recognized (a matter that itself is currently being litigated by Alcor!), and moreover, the right to a PREMORTEM SUSPENSION! There is a further comment on page 20: "It is understood that a person may at a particular time in his/her life desire death and no further medical treatment and thereupon exercise his/her right to refuse such medical treatment and allow nature to take its course. But if a person desires to interfere with natural death processes by hastening it through suspension activities, (assumed to be natural methods,) the state has a compelling interest to require a licensed physician to perform those activities, which involve the practice of medicine, if for no other purpose than to alleviate pain and discomfort associated with such suspension activities." Apparently, this is a reaffirmation of the opinion that a person has the right to have death hastened "through suspension activities" (i.e. a premortem suspension) provided said activities are performed by a licensed physician! The primary reason why a physician must perform the services is, apparently, to insure that there is no undue pain or discomfort in the process! Well, to put it mildly, all this seems way too good to be true (despite the superficial defeat in denying Alcor's motion for injunctive relief). Possibly the judge is assuming that only "natural methods" of hastening death (refusal of food and fluids?) plus medication to relieve pain or discomfort, must be used. This would mean, for example, that a person desiring a premortem suspension must still undergo a horrible and possibly permanently damaging regimen of self-deprivation (as actually happened in a recent cryonic suspension [2]), rather than being promptly suspended when the time was right. However this is not clearly spelled out in the ruling. It is too early to tell, of course, what impact this ruling will have on gaining legal recognition for cryonics and in particular, on the vital question of premortem cryonic suspensions. It would seem, though, that "some good must come of it." What that precisely will be, I hope to report in future issues of this newsletter. References 1. "Ruling on application for preliminary injunction", Saul Kent et. al. v. Grover C. Trask II, Superior Court of the State of California, County of Riverside, Dec. 15, 1989, case #201022. 2. Darwin, M. "A Suspension in Detroit" Cryonics 10(5) 21 (May, 1989, pub. by Alcor Foundation, Riverside, CA) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=148