X-Message-Number: 16433
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 02:14:32 -0700
From: Kennita Watson <>
Subject: Re: "Choosing death"
References: <>

From discussion with Loyis Epstein:

> > Message #16407 Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 12:09:07 -0700
> > From: Olaf Henny <>
> > ...
> > Would you, Louis consider ending your life, while you are still
> > in control of your faculties, in order to be cryo-preserved with
> > a slim chance to live thousands of years with sound mind and
> > body instead of watching your mind fading out with ever 
> > dimming awarenes?
> 
> No... I would prefer to keep functioning as best I could for as 
> long as possible to increase the chance that a way of restoring 
> me to full function could be found.  A gamble,but so's everything.
> >
> > Oh yeah? Suppose someone has a brain tumor. In a short time, by all
> > appearances, it will squeeze his gray matter out his eye sockets, or
> > otherwise transform it to goo. All he wants is to be suspended *now*, while
> > still in his right mind....
> 
> There has to be a better way of containing the tumor...
> limiting its growth,killing its cells,or what have you.Has much
> been done with low-temperature  needles,as has been done in other
> tumor operations?  (Freeze the tumor,let the person live!)
> 
> > Thomas Donaldson was one such case. The courts did, in effect, deny him his
> > wish to a premortem suspension, with the implication that force, at
> > whatever level necessary, would be used to prevent him carrying out his
> > wish even though he sought no imposition, in any normal sense, on anyone
> > else's freedom. As it turns out, there was an escape hatch in that Thomas
> > could have chosen to stop intake of food and fluids and die by dehydration.
> 
> I happen to think that this should also be prohibited.
> If the deliberate purpose of an action or inaction is
> to die,the action or inaction can not be rationally condoned.
> ...
> People who deliberately seek death deserve only frustration.
> 
> I believe in eradicating death, not treating it as a legitimate
> goal of a thinking person.
> 
> We need fanatical,not conditional, opposition to death.
> 
This entire discussion seems to me to be being conducted on the basis of 
a false premise -- that those who are cryopreserved are "choosing to die".
Au contraire!  Such people are condemned to die, by age, injury, or
disease, and are choosing cryopreservation as their only current chance
to live.

Louis seems to be expecting those on death row, whose sentences are to
be carried out very soon, to pray for a last-minute pardon without even
knowing that there is anyone to take the case, much less how to pursue
it.  The cryonicists at least are working on a stay of execution.

I venture to assert that people with brain cancer or other terminal 
ailments try everything possible to halt/reverse it, and only when 
their attempts fail do they consider cryopreservation.  If the odds of
dying by doing nothing are greater than the odds of dying by being
cryosuspended, then cryosuspension is the rational choice.  Choosing 
to die would be stepping in front of a freight train, setting oneself
afire, or putting a bullet through one's head -- please don't put
cryopreservation in the same bin with self-destructive activities 
such as those.
--
Kennita Watson          |  Check your receipt!  If it has your complete 
     |  CC number and exp. date on it, complain to the 
http://www.kennita.com  |  manager; you are ripe for credit/identity theft.

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