X-Message-Number: 24151 From: Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 16:44:11 EDT Subject: Re: Oregon Assisted Suicide-Swaze on publicity James wrote on publicity, ***Comments below: *** I'm sure the last thing Oregonians want is to have a 'loco crazy bunch of individuals', as they will see it, showing up just to utilize their enlightened law and abuse their good graces in having sense enough as a progressive society to care for excess suffering for the terminally ill. Um, 60% of them *did* vote in favor of their Assisted Suicide law, in spite of its controversial nature and opposition from the same people who will oppose this. So I wouldn't prejudge what they'd think about this. They seem pretty openminded to me. They won't see it the way we do, that we're actually not only relieving excess suffering but also and wonderfully so offering an actual chance at continued life! They just won't see it like this if care is not taken to dot all the "i's" and cross all the "t's". I'm sure very sure as I know Oregonians they will see it as exploitation. *** Then why don't they see every instance of assisted suicide that way? Doubtless the anti's do.... It's a good bet the negative publicity stemming from such an endeavor would not go well for cryonics. Would there be publicity? If we did it privately and discreetly and did not hire a brass band, who would know? The Oregon Dept. of Health. Would they ordinarily publicize it? Probably not. Especially if the family asked for privacy. "If you do not publicize the names and burial practices of others who use this law, if it is often called "Death with Dignity", then please preserve our privacy and dignity too." Even so I still plan, if need arises, to take advantage of that law. ***Good! I just hope first that it won't be necessary but if it is that it will be so far down the road from now that everyone will be much more enlightened than they are now, or cryonics will be long past accepted, and see the benefit for me. *** I hope so too. But how will they get enlightened if we never discuss it? And if we gradually open the discussion, quietly and responsibly, will that necessarily be *bad* publicity? Alan Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24151