X-Message-Number: 24123
From: 
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 00:25:36 EDT
Subject: Re: CryoNet #24116

Hello all:

I have pursued the idea of early deanimation by phoning the Hemlock Society 
in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal.  It appears it would be legal for 

an Oregon resident to choose to deanimate a couple of weeks early, and to do so
by hypothermia, followed immediately by freezing. But the man I spoke to 
expressed great skepticism that any physician he knew would be willing to 

participate. I guess the poor man is called crazy pretty often even for 
involvement 

with euthanasia, because he repeated many times that cryonics was "Whacko, just
WHACKO!" and that the public would never ever accept the idea. I didn't argue 
with him, just thanked him for his time.  He had said the residency 

requirement might not be too much of a problem, which was helpful.   I suspect 
that if 
you are in a place and you *say* that's your residence, it is.

Anyway, the thing might be possible if we could just find a physician willing 
to risk his license and brave public opinion to participate. (Alas, Dr 
Kervorkian, where are you when we need you?) So I propose to write the Oregon 

chapter of the American Medical Association and ask if anyone would care to 
discuss 
it.  My proposed letter is below.    Sorry its long and contains so much 
background we've all heard before, but it's written to them and they haven't.

What do you all think?  Does anyone have contacts in the Oregon medical 
community?

Cheers,

Alan Mole



Dear Sirs: 

I would like to discuss a "Pro-life" variation on assisted suicide with an 
open-minded Oregon doctor.  Could you post the following on an appropriate 
bulletin board or discussion group? 

                                                            

I am interested in cryonics, the freezing of a body immediately after death 
and its storage in liquid nitrogen, in the hope that future technology can 

revive, repair and rejuvenate the "de-animated".  Cryonicists know that while we

can now freeze and revive sperm, embryos and even tissues as large as an aorta,
still we cannot revive animals or humans.  But we hope future technology, 

probably nanotechnology, will be able to do this.  No one can predict the future
and even the probability of success cannot be estimated.  But at death we 

choose to be frozen by the following logic: If you are dead and frozen you may 
be 
permanently and irrevocably dead.  But if you are dead and cremated you are 
dead.  Which one would you rather be? 

One disturbing problem is that death by cancer or heart failure may waste 
away many organs in the last weeks, or even leave the patient brain dead, with 
the brain deteriorating beyond hope of repair, while the heart beats on for 

days.  And those last weeks are misery.  In such a case many people would prefer
"assisted suicide" a couple of weeks before natural death, while the body is 
still reasonably robust.  This leaves the assumed doctors of the future with 
something to work with and also avoids the terminal miseries.  

Ideally for a cryonicist, the method of death would lead to minimal damage to 
brain and organs.  Hypothermia would be ideal.  In hypothermia for heart or 
brain operations, precooling allows the heart to be stopped for long periods 
and the brain left without oxygen, all without permanent damage.  

Thus I envision the following scenario: a dying patient follows Oregon law 
for assisted suicide, being examined and certified by two doctors to be within 

six months of death, being certified rational by a psychiatrist, and repeatedly
requesting termination of his life in front of witnesses.  The state grants 
permission.  

Ordinarily a physician would prescribe a lethal dose of barbiturates, the 
patient would swallow them and that would be that.  

But in this case a variation takes place:  The patient would be arterially 
connected to a  blood cooling machine, as used for operations OR 
The patient would lie in a tub designed to keep his mouth and nose above 

water, next to a  tank of icy brine.  A valve on a timer would keep the brine 
out 
the tub at this time.  The patient would say his goodbyes and take a dose of 
barbiturates or other drugs, sufficient to render him unconscious but not kill 
him.  Before the drug acted he would push a button to start a timer, then lie 
back and go to sleep.  The timer would be set so he'd be in a deep sleep 

before the next step.  Then the timer would open the valve, freezing brine would
enter the tub, and the patient's body temperature would fall into his heart 
stopped.  

The physician would immediately pronounce death and sign the death 
certificate or other appropriate papers.  

The "corpse" would pass to the "cryonics rescue team" just as otherwise it 
might pass to a mortician.  The team would drain the blood, replace it with a 
freezing solution, and commence cool down in preparation for liquid nitrogen 
storage.  The brain would be so cold at this point that they would have hours 
before deterioration took place.  

This is probably how one would do an experiment on an animal to have the best 
shot at success.  Certainly one would not let the animal waste away and die, 
then wait a long time as the brain deteriorated at body temperature and people 
signed papers,  and only then freeze it.  And so the procedure above would 

give the human patient best chance too, a chance to be restored to healthy life.
 (Admittedly we do not know that chance.  Proponents cannot calculate it, it 
is an unknowable mystery.  But equally, detractors cannot estimate it either, 
and certainly cannot prove it to be impossible.  Capabilities of medicine a 

century from now are simply unguessable.  But if they can't do it in 2104, well
the body can remain frozen until 2504.  And who can predict the level of 
technology five centuries from now?) 

Thus I think such procedure would be rational and moral.  

Note that we are not talking of a healthy 18 year old who walks in dressed as 
Buck Rogers and foolishly wants to be frozen so we can see the 25th-century.  
This is a great risk and he'd likely be throwing his life away.  Rather we're 
talking of a clearly dying man with only weeks of misery ahead.  He literally 
has nothing to lose.  And this represents his only chance at life.  

Also we are not talking about everyone doing this or making anyone do it.  We 
are asking whether someone who does want to should be allowed to, and whether 
there is a doctor who might help -- even if he or she wouldn't want to be 
frozen himself.

I would like to discuss this possibility with an open-minded physician.  
Friends in the cryonics movement are interested too.  No one I know of want to 

avail themselves of this procedure in the near future; we're just trying to find
out if it is possible.  I realize it would be very controversial and 

Attorney-General Ashcroft might lead a mob with torches and pitchforks to revoke
the 

license of the doctor involved, based on violation of the laws of witchcraft and
superstition.  There could be real dangers.  But, would anyone like to talk 
about it? 

Alan Mole, 


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