X-Message-Number: 626
Date: 31 Jan 92 03:49:21 EST
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: cryonics: #622 - #624

Hi Kevin:
This message is meant for anyone who subscribes to your list. I
have a little to say about the particular messages I've just
received, but I'm going to do that elsewhere.

On either the 28th or 29th of January 1992 the Santa Barbara
Appeals Court DENIED our appeal. I have been able to get a copy
of the judgement (which has been photocopied and seen at least by those
Alcor workers in Alcor itself --- strictly speaking, Carlos got Ashworth
to fax this judgement to us). Fundamentally, the Appeals Court decided 
that they were not going to accept our appeal because if they did so it
would make the general laws against murder much harder to formulate or
even to verify whether or not a murder had occurred. Since they did not
wish murder to happen, and felt that even the smallest concession would
open too many loopholes, our appeal was denied.

I personally am unhappy about this but I am not devastated by it. Cryonics
has met, in my experience, rebuffs far too many to count. This merely
becomes another one to add to the growing pile. I personally did not enter
into the lawsuit believing that a victory was certain, I did so because
I believed it had to be done, that eventually such a suit would be WON,
and there must always be a first time.

My own health, if anything, has been slowly improving. The deathrate 
statistics for people with my condition say that only 30% survive longterm.
When we began the suit, my future looked much more grim than it does now.
Naturally I (and my doctors) will keep a close watch; but I've been lucky
even to live this long, and the longer I live the better my
future will look.

Unfortunately, there is at least one Alcor member with an even worse
version of the same kind of tumor as I. I hope very much that this judge-
ment does not get in the way of HIS suspension.

I have always believed that life was hard. We can rejoice much more, then,
in whatever victories we can snatch from the chaos around us. I know that
many people may be disappointed, too --- the suit after was a test case.
But my own response is to keep on, and do what I can toward cryonics and
my own future suspension, at whatever time it may occur. In the end we
will win by persistence, not by any sudden blazing victory

Finally I want to thank all those cryonicists who have contributed to
the support of this lawsuit. I do not believe that, ultimately, their
contributions will turn out to have been in vain.

				Thomas Donaldson

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