X-Message-Number: 11565
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: more on suicide and lawsuits relating to it
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 21:23:49 +1000 (EST)

About suicide:
Any political attempt (ie. writing to officials etc) is unlikely to
prevent an autopsy. This happens because coroners, even if elected,
actually have very strong powers to order an autopsy. The arrival of a 
flood of letters from all and sundry about whether or not he/she should
autopsy a particular person is very unlikely to move that coroner.

As I've pointed out before, there IS one means to escape autopsy, which so
far has been used successfully by several cryonicists: starve oneself to
death. This is hardly a comfortable strategy for anyone concerned, but it
does seem to work. 

As someone who was the central character in a lawsuit which aimed to allow
suspension prior to "Declaration of Death", I will also add another
thought. That lawsuit did not settle the issue. At most it affected the
situation in California, one of 50 states in one country among over 100.
I believe that the best strategy on this issue is to set up means to bring
similar lawsuits. Each such lawsuit will naturally require one person
(either dying, or probably dying --- I was lucky, as I've said many times
before) to bring the suit, but with the help of others. And if both the
lawyers and the officers of cryonics societies who might be involved in
such a suit study carefully my prior lawsuit, they may find means to bring
a better one next time. Bluntly: think about this problem in advance, not
just when it lands in your lap.

I will add another point, too: currently there is intensive research about
to commence (or perhaps already commenced) on better ways to "freeze"
and store brains. Given the unimaginative character of the law, its
unlikely that even perfect brain cryosuspensions would change anything...
we'd still have to have a ritual "Declaration of Death". So this effort
will not be complete if we only fund research to improve our methods. On
the other hand, advance preparations for such lawsuits is likely to be a 
good deal less expensive than that research, especially if the lawyers
themselves are cryonicists.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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