X-Message-Number: 5724
From: Garret Smyth <>
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics,uk.legal,sci-life-extension
Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley)
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 96 19:01:36 GMT
Message-ID: <>

References: <> 
<>

 "John Sharman" writes:

> ...You start successfully
> thawing out a few frozen stiffies and then we'll worry about the laws to
> cope with them. But not until then.

There are interesting uk legal problems associated with cryonics, so there
is no reason not to discuss them in uk.legal. Perhaps the automatic cross 
posting of messages is what has brought on the flame war.

A problem already discussed, but that would bear further examination, is the
precise legal definition of death. Given the Suda experiments (frozen and
thawed cat brains showed spontaneous electrical activity) back in the sixties,
and improved suspension procedures for humans that we have now, it is quite
feasible that if we thawed out a well suspended patient they might show
brain activity - ie be alive under the current brain criteria. It would be
a bit of a phyrric vicory, at least for the patient, since they would die
again shortly afterwards (we can't, after all, replace all the damaged cells
and organs yet, or reverse ageing), but it would at least allow the rest of
us to demand that suspendees were accorded proper legal rights.

And, did you know that people are being thawed out sucessfully? I admit that
my use of the word "people" is a little contentious here, but then it depends 
on your religion/philosophy. I refer to human embryos. Regarded by many
as people, fertilised embryos are regularly frozen, stored, thawed, implanted
and become normal kids. I hope no one is going to call the people who consider
embryos to be people weird or loony.

Perhaps there is someone out there who could give a summary of the act dealing
with storage of human embryos, and the current problem it has lead to? (I don't
recall the name of the act, but I'm pretty sure "Human" and "Embryo" come into
the title.)

TTFN

Garret

-- 
Garret Smyth

Phone:  0181 789 1045 or +44 181 789 1045


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5724