X-Message-Number: 5846
Newsgroups: uk.legal,sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension
From:  (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley)
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 22:57:24 GMT
Message-ID: <>
References: <> <>

>     From my experience, Brad misreads the objections of the *majority* of
>the general public (although some certainly will feel the way he
>describes).  I believe that the public is mostly confused that we are
>freezing "dead people."  They object that we cannot bring "dead people"
>back to life.  Of course, they misunderstand how they misuse the label

Interesting.  Now I will admit I usually talk about cryonics with the
moderately educated, and the moderately educated know that the freezing
is generally far more damaging than whatever stopped the heart of
the patient.  As such, I have never had somebody bring up this concern,
but I know that Steve Bridge has talked to more people than I have, so
I will bow to that experience.  More commonly, when people learn that
the patient's head is cut off, they become very aware that reversing
suspension is far more difficult than fixing whatever stopped the
heart.   I would challenge that *anybody*, after reading a description
of neurosuspension would state that the fact that the suspension was
after, rather than before clinical death, is the main obstacle.

>     More of the public will see cryonics as a *reasonable* course of
>action if we could only freeze people "just before" they "die."  Again,

This requires just the right level of ignorance.  Once you know enough
about planned revival technology, you know that repairing what killed you
is trivial.   Now if there is long ischemia, it is uncertain how hard
that damage is to repair.  But that doesn't apply to the cases in
question, because anybody terminally ill enough for pre-mortem suspension
is likely to have suspension begin the moment the heart stops anyway.

You can indeed assume ignorance on the part of the public, but not a
precise level of it.

So you are basing your statement on the public having just enough knowledge
(ie. having seen some Mel Gibson movies) to think that it might work, but
not enough understand the real principles planned.

Of course, better suspension techniques that work on living tissue today
would change all this.  If you could show that a living, healthy primate could
suspended and revived, then that would vastly change public perception, and
they would all be signing up for that sort of suspension.  Some people would
even sign up healthy for the trip to the future.

Anyway, I don't think the public is all that much *against* cryonics.
On the whole, they are neutral, not for it themselves but willing to
let other people do it if they believe it.  But the public certainly
does not believe Cryonics works, or even has a significant chance of
working.   Otherwise there would be more than 500 people in the world
signed up for it, considering the alternative.

The problem is not cryonics.  The problem is anything that wants to:

a) Offer a supposedly scientific hope of new life to the dying
b) Charge them a *lot* of money for that hope.
c) Kill them early, where they might well otherwise want to hang on,
   in order to realize that hope.

>     One surprising public effect of the media blitz at that time was the
>outpouring of empathy for Thomas's situation.  For the first time many

I am not surprised at all.  About half the public is for assisted
suicide.  60% are for abortion, but do you think that issue is settled?
If there were no sympathy, then you could really worry.  The problem
is that the people opposed to this are *really* opposed, much like
anti-abortionists.  The people for it are just for it.

>     If Alcor attempts this, it will be after some legal authority tells
>us we can or in some other fairly "safe" situation.

You don't need just a legal authority, you need a political one.  You
need to test the waters a lot of ways first, and you need to do polls,
and you probably need to do the first one free, or certainly defer payment
until after the patient would have terminated without assistance.
(To stave off any criticism that you want to do it pre-mortem to get
the money sooner.  With escrow you can do this fairly safely, at a cost
in interest.)
>
>     We can also take extreme care.  The typical laws that are proposed
>for assisted suicide provide enough buffer for us.

I know of no situation where those assisting in the suicide are charging
$50,000, or where those encouraging the suicide are heirs or beneficiaries
of life assurance policies.   You probably know there is a market
in buying out the life assurance policies of the terminally ill.  How it
works is if you are dying, and have a $100K life assurance policy, they
buy it from you for some fee based on your life expectancy, say $80K.  You
get the 80K when you are alive to spend it, they get $100K when you die.

Some people view this as ghoulish already, thought not very much, but if
the beneficiaries, who clearly "want" (from a financial standpoint) to
have you kick sooner ever expressed that desire in real ways, and started
lobbying for assisted suicide etc, you can bet they would face trouble.
>
>     But the division is changing in the FAVOR of individual right to
>choose, not against it.  I do not see that if a legislature or public vote

Such change is slow.  As noted, even though abortion is legal, RU-486 is
not and there are constant attempts to limit abortion rights.  Things
like fetal tissue re-use often *hurt* the pro-abortion cause, not help
it.

-- 
Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp.	 
The net's #1 E-Newspaper (1,200,000 paid sbscrbrs.)  http://www.clari.net/brad/


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