X-Message-Number: 1699
From: 
Subject: CRYONICS Custody of Alcor Patients
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 93 13:29:28 PST

From: Mike Perry
Date: 30 Jan. 1993
> Subject: Custody of Alcor Patients

Disclaimer: I am the Alcor patient caretaker, and also edit a column in 
*Cryonics* magazine devoted to cryonics history. The following are my 
opinions, not an official statement of policies for the Alcor Foundation.

Recently the issue has come up of the possibility of an attempt being made, 
by relatives of certain Alcor patients, to acquire "custody" of those 
patients, presumably for reasons that said relatives are unhappy with the 
way these patients are currently cared for by Alcor, and they would wish to 
provide better care. (Note: I am not including here any cases in which 
relatives are seeking to remove a patient from suspension, only those in
which there is ostensibly continuing interest on the part of the relatives 
to maintain the suspensions in question.) Reasons for the unhappiness 
include the fact that Alcor's facility is in an earthquake zone, and is 
small (given the current patient population of 15 neuros and 10 whole 

bodies), cramped and not very pleasing aesthetically. One set of wealthy 
relatives 
is looking into the possibility of constructing their own facility, and 
another wealthy individual who has a relative in suspension is said, 
perhaps, also to be interested in this possibility. At this stage it is not 
entirely clear what is being planned by these individuals. However, I feel 
it appropriate to comment in view of other comments that have been made, and 
also because we need to be thinking about certain potentially serious 
problems well in advance of their occurrence. Take the following then, as a 
worst-case scenario. In particular, *I am not offering it as a reflection 
against any particular individuals* but to address a difficulty that *could* 
arise, and one we need to be prepared for.

The issue at stake concerns what action Alcor should take if someone wishes 
to acquire "custody" of a patient and store them in a facility different 
from Alcor's current facility. I have put "custody" in quotation marks 
because it can be understood in different senses. There is physical custody, 
for example, and also legal custody. I think these two very different 
concepts have often been confused. It has sometimes been stated (by Keith 
Henson for example) that if better facilities were available for one or more 
patients, it would not be unreasonable to move those patients there. This 
would, I think, be reasonable *under certain circumstances*, specifically, 
if Alcor personnel were available at the new site to insure and verify 
continuing, adequate standards of care, and if *legal custody of the 
patients still resided with Alcor*. I would be adamantly opposed, however, 
to a transfer of legal custody of any patients, except under certain dire or 
extraordinary circumstances. One such circumstance would be if it was 
necessary to save a suspension. Another would be if (and this was recently 
suggested as a possibility) a decision had been made to disband Alcor in 
favor of another organization, assuming such course seemed justified. In the 
latter case, *all* the patients would be transferred, presumably to a new 
organization that adhered to Alcor's currently high principles of commitment 
to patient care.

Barring such possibilities, though, I feel it is morally imperative to 
affirm *our* continuing commitment to patient care. *We must not surrender 
legal custody of a patient to anybody* no matter how hard they might be 
willing to fight for a patient, no matter what they might claim to offer in 
the way of equal or better facilities, and no matter how much struggle and 
resources on our part would be required to defeat them. A moment's 
reflection will, I think, show good reasons for taking this stance. Suppose, 
for instance, that some individual with considerable resources wished to 
remove some patient from the legal custody of Alcor, and was willing to go 
to great lengths to do so. This would be an action that would put a great 
strain on Alcor (assuming it chose to fight it out, as I am arguing it 
should), and would thereby put other patients in danger, as well as 
endangering the chances of members not yet in suspension. A person willing 
to attack Alcor in this way *would thus have very suspect motives* from a 
cryonics standpoint, *and this would be all the more reason not to give in 
to them*.

In the early days of cryonics, relatives often assumed the burden of 
maintaining patients in suspension. This seemed a good policy at first: the 
relatives had a direct, personal interest in maintaining the suspension, and 
funds were short. As time went by, though, the error of this policy became 
all too apparent. Of the nearly 20 patients suspended prior to 1974, all to 
my knowledge were initially maintained by relatives. *Only one of those 
patients is still in suspension today, and that patient is not being cared 
for by relatives.* Most of the suspensions, in fact, ended within about five 
years. By comparison, most of the 50 or so individuals suspended from 1974 
on were never in the care of relatives, *and most of those individuals are 
still in suspension today.* It's true that many of the relatives in question 
were not wealthy and were not interested in cryonic suspension themselves, 
unlike the more recent cases involving Alcor patients. However, the dismal 
record of patient loss does raise a question of whether any relative would 
be as good a prospect for arranging decades or more of continuing care, even 
for a loved one, as an organization committed to keeping its patients in 
suspension, as Alcor currently is. *I feel that an organization willing to 
fight for **all** its patients as I have suggested is a better longterm 
prospect than any individual who would show a special interest in **some** 
patient or patients but not others.*

So to reiterate, I have considered a worst-case scenario involving 
ostensibly well-intended efforts by relatives to provide better care for an 
Alcor patient by removing that patient from Alcor's legal custody. I have 
also avoided naming any actual relatives of patients since it is not clear 
at this point that such plans are being implemented or seriously 
contemplated by such individuals. Hopefully matters will not come down to 
this. It is generally agreed that Alcor needs a new facility for *all* of 
its patients. There is a possibility that efforts of some relatives could 
result in better storage for all. I hope this happens, and I hope that the 
high standards of Alcor can remain intact in the process.

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