X-Message-Number: 1393 From: (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 3 Dec 92 11:20:56 EST Subject: CRYONICS Autopsies To date, I have received one response to my request for suggested cryonics- enabling legislation. While the current roundtable flaming is fascinating (although it leaves me, as one who has little first-hand experience with the principals, at a loss for whom to believe), the list's silence on an issue as vital as legal blocks to cryonics dismays me. >From my research on cryonics law (about which I will say more in another posting) it seems that perhaps our biggest problem is the risk of autopsy. Most or all states basically give the medical examiner (and often others as well) the right to order an autopsy whenever they want. I have not yet found any states with statutes that allow an individual or their family to stop this. In the cases I've seen so far, when a family has tried to block a State-ordered autopsy, they have lost. Clearly, the argument is between the needs for public safety (after death by violence or unknown causes), public health (after death by infectious disease or unknown causes), or public good (after death by anything the examiner thinks is interesting) and the rights of the individual to control his person. Can people think of ways to strengthen the arguments for a right to block an autopsy? Even in New Hampshire, it would be pointless to introduce legislation. The statist case is just too strong. Another approach: are there some less controversial steps we could advocate that would push us closer to where such legislation could pass? -- David Lubkin. ========================= ========================= Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant and the creed of the slave. -- William Pitt, 1763 ======================================================================== ------- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1393