X-Message-Number: 23015
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 15:59:16 -0500
From: RANDY WICKER <>
Subject: Times are changing

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Times are changing.  I had a "working session" with a key science
reporter from a major publication last night.  We viewed early footage
of a documentary on cloning featuring Dr. Zavos with veiled patients
and technical assistants.  Fortunately, I was able to identify at least one
of them.

I'd taken along a copy of "Physical Immortality" that Mike Perry had
sent to me and a membership card and bumper sticker for the Immortality
Institute.

I took the opportunity to broach the subject of cryonics, life extension
and immortality.  He seemed surprised to discover that CI was being
hassled in Michigan and didn't know about the zoning games in Boca
Raton, Florida.

Somehow, the subject of financing came up.  He said that aging millionaires
were constantly pulling him aside and asking if he knew where the latest
breakthroughs against aging were coming in medicine and biotechnology.

When I asked why he hadn't written about cryonics or those seeking
immortality, his reply was "because it is too kooky".  I'd been urging him
to read Brian Alexander's "Rapture:How Biotechnology Has Become The
New Religion".

I told him his thinking was out of date, that Brian Alexander's entire book
was about how what was considered "kooky" even a decade ago was
becoming mainstream today.

I pointed out an excellent article "Towards a Philosophy of Immortality"
by Marc Geddes, "Cryonics: Background, Overview, and Bioethical
Implications" along with an "Imaginary Conversation About Cryo-preservation"
by Gina Miller.

Like most reporters, he didn't realize that many supporters of
cryonics simply saw it as an avenue of "possible hope" for revival and
realized such revival might not be possible for a long time.

I also told him I was working on storing some of my own cells, even my
entire body for future cloning.  I felt that if I succeeded in doing this the
argument that cryonics organizations were only caring for the dead
would be mute because at a cellular level I would still contain the spark
of life necessary for cloning, that whoever was responsible for those
cells would have to be viewed as storing living tissue.

He was familiar with the outrageous story from France where someone
had been denied cryo-preservation.  When I told him my fears that once
cryonic organizations were deemed to be "regulated cemeteries" laws
or even regulations by appointed bureaucrats might effectively ban
cryonics by ordering "every deceased person must be buried in a certain
period of time".

In any event, after taking a few pages of notes, he announced that, indeed,
he was going to do a story about those seeking immortality.  So, the times
are changing.
Randolfe H. Wicker
Founder, Clone Rights United Front www.clonerights.com 
Spokesperson, Reproductive Cloning Network, www.reproductivecloning.net 
Former CEO, Human Cloning Foundation, www.humancloning.org 
201-656-3280 (Mornings)



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