X-Message-Number: 16978
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 17:47:53 -0500
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Dead people don't have any rights

Dead people (frozen people who are legally dead), don't have rights.


In Peter McClusky's post, he rightfully pointed out 2 different meanings of
the word "value" as causing my argument some problems (as did a few
others).  And in that posting he brought up a point that the inherent value
argument assigns too much to frozen people.

This is a problem that I have been considering for a long time.  The "law"
generaly does not give "dead people" any rights.  And for a cryonics
service provider to freeze someone, that someone must be legally "dead."
Otherwise the procedure would cause the death of that someone and that
would be murder.  So we are in a catch 22.

We like to think of the patients as legally dead so we can freeze them
without having to go to jail for murder.  Also, in the past (this may
change if we ever get the conventional medical community to take over) we
did not need doctors and hospitals to do the procedure since we were not
practicing medicine since we were freezing "dead" people.  So calling
frozen people dead had some benefits.

But on the other side of the coin, after we get the patient frozen, it
would be in his/her best interests if he/she was not considered dead, but
more of in a coma.  That way the patient would have rights.  Specifically
the right to not be unfrozen, and the right to be reanimated when and if
that technology ever becomes available.

But the frozen patient does not have rights if the patient is dead.  For
people who are going to want certain rights to be respected after their
death, they often put these concerns in a trust. The *trust* of a dead
person has rights, even if the dead person does not.  So if your "dead"
body were in a trust, it might get some indirect rights???  Also, that is
the place you may want to put your assets while you are considered "dead"
by the government and until you are considered "alive" again.  

So one of the BIG concerns I have when thinking/writing through how a
future hypothetical problem might be handled in the patient's best interest
is how can we get rights to frozen people?????  I can't think of any answer
at the present time.

Dave Pizer

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