X-Message-Number: 26998
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 17:34:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jeff Davis <>
Subject: Re:  well intentioned initiatives

Cryonetters,

"Jordan Sparks" <> wrote:
 
> I've contacted the Oregon Mortuary Board.  The 
director was very nice and nonjudgemental.  He said
cryonics is not currently recognized as a lawful means
of final disposition in Oregon, ...

This is a semantic problem arising from two completely
different perspectives--the conventional perspective:
"dead is dead", vs the cryonics visionary perspective:
"clinically dead" isn't really dead, it just means
that medical intervention has reached the limit of
current capability.  

These divergent perspectives show up in the term
"final disposition".  This terminology is to be
expected of a Mortuary Board individual. As the
cryonics guy, Jordan, you need to confront this
erroneous point of view and promote (insist on,
actually) the more correct model: simply, that cryonic
suspension is a medical response to an otherwise
lethal inevitability.  Cryonic suspension is "storage"
not "final disposition".

I commend you on your plan/vision. Regarding
legalities, I would concur in requiring -- howbeit
with a more supportive tone than Charles' cautionary
response -- a thorough, professional, and
reality-based evaluation of the legal obstacles.  It
really is a very nasty world out there amidst the
powerful, greedy, craven, and prejudiced.  To
successfully avoid these obstacles requires legal and
political expertise/savvy.  I have no doubt however,
that it can be done.  

I'm no lawyer.  Nevertheless, my approach to the legal
challenges would follow two lines of reasoning:  (1)
the right to life.  Stated in the constitution, in the
Bill of Rights, 5th Amendment: "No person shall be...
deprived of life, ...without due process of law." 
This is the basis of the right of self-defense and the
right to essential medical care.  Thus the case can be
made that access to cryonics, as a lifesaving medical
procedure, has bedrock constitutional protection.

(2) Concurrently, I would wed the protections of the
First and 14th Amendments. The First Amendment
guarantees that "Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof...".  Since both medical and funerary
practices have been and remain strongly influenced by
religious beliefs, and since one can make the case
that the "belief" in cryonics (I personally prefer the
term "confidence", but in this context "belief" works
better) is the rationalist equivalent of "religious
faith", one can then assert that the equal protection
clause of the 14th Amendment protects cryonicists'
rights -- as it does similar rights of the devoutly
religious -- to specify personal medical care and
"funerary" practices.

But, of course, law is a dirty business, so expect to
have to slog your way through to your goal.

Best, Jeff Davis

"Our father was not a religious man. The faith that
many people place in God, we place in science and
other human endeavors."
                 John Henry and Claudia Williams




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