X-Message-Number: 4526
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Australian Euthanasia Legislation online!
Date: 18 Jun 1995 02:52:22 GMT
Message-ID: <3s04d6$>

References: <3rebb0$> <> 
<LOC.3roh18$> <>

In <>  (Brad Templeton) writes:

>I am not sure that's true.  Right now I hold with the idea that
>cryopreservation is the 2nd worst thing that can happen to you.  I would
>not advise anybody to get cryoperserved while they still have meaningful
>life remaining.

>The question of those suffering brain deterioration is much harder to
>deal with, of course.

	*All* cryonics patients suffer some degree of brain deterioration
during the several hours of deep shock that preceed cardiac arrest
due to a terminal illness.  In addition, remote standby (the process
of waiting for cryonics patients to die) is one of the most expensive
and difficult parts of cryonics.  Eliminating the need for 
remote standby would both reduce the cost of cryonics, and materially
improve the quality of preservation. 
 	
>But I might go so far as to suggest that no cryonics organization offer
>to preserve or in any way be pre-informed of a self-termination, legal or
>otherwise.   It's risky enough to be involved after the fact.

	I agree that cryonics should never be SOLD alongside an
assisted suicide option.  However, if assisted suicide does become legal,
I don't see how I could tell a long-time member who wanted this option
that I could not cryopreserve them.  If I did so, the most likely result
would be a lawsuit from the member for breach of contract.
  
>The public will surely say, "She killed herself early because she had
>been sold a bill of goods about this cryonics quackery.  We need to ban
>this and ban it now."  

	Perhaps by the time this becomes a real issue the technical
basis of cryonics will be better than it is today.

---Brian Wowk


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