X-Message-Number: 203 From att!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns Tue Jul 17 02:14:00 1990 Return-Path: <hos1cad!hos1cad!att!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns> Received: from hos1cad.UUCP by whscad1.att.uucp (4.1/SMI-3.2) id AA17340; Tue, 17 Jul 90 02:13:59 EDT Received: from portal.UUCP by sun.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07681; Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:06:33 PDT From: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns Received: by portal.portal.com (1.35) id AA22092; Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:06:19 PDT Received: by hobo.portal.com (4.0/SMI-4.0) id AA08377; Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:06:19 PDT To: Subject: Cryonics and Euthanasia Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:06:18 PDT Message-Id: <> X-Origin: The Portal System (TM) X-Possible-Reply-Path: X-Possible-Reply-Path: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns I just got through watching the Phil Donahue Show featuring Thomas Donaldson, Carlos Mondragon and Mike Darwin. I really felt that they handled themselves quite well. I was also surprised that Donahue handled the issue as sensitively as he did. The medical establishment representative seemed like a nice man who was a bit out of his league from a technical perspective. Still, he did have an excellent point about euthanasia being used to relieve suffering in good times and to create suffering in bad times. I honestly think that whatever we that are interested in cryonics do, at least one state will start to permit euthanasia or medically assisted suicides within the next 5 years. What I am concerned about is that if, in fact these laws are abused, Alcor and cryonics could get a negative association that it does not deserve. I am also concerned that cryonics might well be used to cause some people to choose euthanasia more casually than they might otherwise. I am throwing out the question of what, if any, self imposed limitations Alcor and the cryonics community should impose on their use of euthanasia prior to suspension? For example, should people requesting suspension that would occur prior to their natural death be required to sign up for suspension some period before their death?(say six months or a year) Do we, as members of Alcor, want to minimize association with people who make these decisions at the last minute, or encourage others to choose euthanasia under a state of duress? I am just throwing this out as a possible means by which we might distance ourselves from people that might abuse these new liberalizations of the law. I expect that once the legal issues are out of the way, 10-15% of all suspensions will occur before the point of natural death. I also expect euthanasia to become an increasingly visible public issue over the next few years. Alcor and cryonics are a rather vulnerable target for some demagogue trying to make a name for himself because our practices are unusual and because many of us appear, well, a little "weird" to the general public. Sam Brown (the found of the Peace Corp) once said "The more radical your ideas, the more conservative your suit should be". There's a lot of truth to this, we cryonicists need for our ethics and rhetoric to not only be as good as the medical establishment's, but substantially better. The Donaldson case is really the clearest possible case in which I can imagine that permission for an early suspension should be granted-I hope that we do our homework now, so that we never do have a case which is less exemplary. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=203