X-Message-Number: 24816 Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:24:07 -0400 From: Randolfe Wicker <> Subject: Christopher Reeve Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT No one is flawless. James Swayze certainly gave us both medical information and a unique perspective regarding Christopher Reeve, stem cell research and cryonics. I had some serious objections to Reeve's political stances myself. I could understand his passion for therapeutic cloning to relieve his disability of spinal cord injury. I could understand why he would want to distance himself politically from the broader less-popular cause of using cloning technology (once perfected) to cure another disability called infertility. However, I was outraged when he went "over the line" in a press release by declaring that "reproductive cloning should be outlawed". I wrote him several letters trying to set up a meeting. I spent years making appearances on network and cable news shows defending his issue, "therapeutic cloning", and making it clear that the religious right was simply trying to win political points by confusing the two issues. Indeed, they were two different issues. However, both were based on the same cloning technology. I felt that by joining the chorus of anti-reproductive-cloning fanatics, Christopher Reeve was actually shooting himself in the foot. Nevertheless, every champion of a political cause sometimes has to make difficult choices. Even a well-intentioned "Superman" and a national hero like Christopher Reeve can make mistakes. I missed the documentary James Swayze mentioned. However, I have in my video library an incredibly moving talk by Christopher Reeve. He described how a promising treatment for his condition which had been developed overseas had been delayed for two years by "politics". It was quite moving to hear him say, "Two years might not sound like such a long time. However, when you are unable to move, two years can seem like a lifetime." Indeed, those two years of waiting might have greatly contributed to shortening his lifetime. Those of us who embrace the idea of cryonics usually admit that we are clinging onto our only hope for personal survival. Cryonics is a very misunderstood and stigmatized cause today. Mixing issues is dangerous to any person seriously advocating for a special cause. As a cloning activist, I tried to avoid being identified as a minor historical figure in the struggle for homosexual civil rights. I dodged the accurate label of "atheist" (admit that and many people cease listening to anything else you have to say) and used the less provocative truth that I was a "lapsed Catholic". Once anyone is confirmed as a Roman Catholic, they remain a Catholic whether they like it or not. One cannot 'leave' or 'resign' from the Catholic Church. You can only be expelled by having the Pope himself issue an official "Bull of Excommunication". I would be delighted to receive such a document. I would frame it and hang it prominently on the wall. Until then, I will simply remain a "lapsed Catholic" while championing cloning, life extension, cryonics or any other issue in the public arena. Christopher Reeve probably knew little about cryonics. Like most people, he would probably have dismissed it out-of-hand as an impossible dream promoted by some fringe group. Being an admired and loved celebrity is a fragile and perishable status. Look at what happened to our beloved Ted Williams when it became known that he signed up for cryonics. I think it can reasonably be argued that Christopher Reeve would have undermined his life's work for therapeutic cloning if he had arranged to be cryonically preserved. Cryonics might have benefited but therapeutic cloning would have suffered. With proposals for public funding of therapeutic cloning on the ballot this November in California and New Jersey, with institutions like Harvard University asking for "permission" to clone human embryos "for disease research", Christopher Reeve might well have chosen to die for the cause dearest to him even if he thought cryonics was worth the gamble on a personal level. Some people die fighting for their country, trying to save a loved one from an attacker or a fire, fighting against bigots for civil rights and justice. Christopher Reeve, in my considered opinion, died fighting for therapeutic cloning and stem cell research. The real question is whether or not he was actually a victim of "Right-To-Life" politics. I disagreed with Christopher Reeve. However, he remains one of my special heroes. Regardless of any unenlightened views he had regarding reproductive cloning and cryonics, he was really our ally. He was fighting for the science's freedom to discover and for medicine's right to heal. Those are two big-picture issues very relevant to all of us. Randolfe H. Wicker Founder, Clone Rights United Front www.clonerights.com Spokesperson, Reproductive Cloning Network, www.reproductivecloning.net Correspondent, Stem Clone Digest, www.stemclonedigest.com Advisor, The Immortality Institute, www.imminst.org 201-656-3280 (Mornings) Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24816