X-Message-Number: 15648
From: 
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 12:24:22 EST
Subject: planned suspensions

Phil Rhoades (#15629) makes the point that we (people generally) should try 
to change laws/customs to allow more individual control, and in particular to 
allow someone who is dying to choose the time and means of death, both to 
save suffering and money and, in the case of cryonics members, to allow 
planned suspensions under controlled conditions. 

Of course he is right, but there are other options besides (1) accepting 
present customs and (2) changing laws. A third option is to find cracks in 
the system.

One such crack--pretty small, but a crack--involves the hospice system. 
Someone who dies at home under hospice care can--at least in some 
jurisdictions--do pretty much as he pleases, or the family can. When my wife 
Mae died in Scottsdale last year, only family were present (and our local 
funeral director very shortly after); it wasn't even necessary to have a 
professional pronounce death--I did that, with delay measured in seconds.

An even better way would be for the patient to "commit suicide" with a team 
standing by, without waiting for natural death. Suicide is not illegal in 
Michigan, although assisting in a suicide is illegal. The problem is the 
requirement of autopsy in cases of sudden or suspicious death. With a 
sympathetic attending physician, there might be no problem, especially in a 
hospice situation. 

But some of us would like to go further, and plan a suspension when the 
quality of life becomes too low, even if natural death is not imminent. This 
could be done, perhaps, by conferring in advance with the local medical 
examiner, explaining your plans, and inviting him to have a representative 
present, for assurance that the patient himself "committed suicide" with no 
assistance and while in full possession of his faculties. The medical 
examiner would then promise to waive autopsy. No change in laws 
required--only a reasonable medical examiner.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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