X-Message-Number: 2500 From: whscad1!kqb (Kevin Q Brown +1 201 386 7344) Subject: CRYONICS Legal Protection from Autopsy One of the major risks for a cryonic suspension patient is the threat of autopsy. If the local Coroner or Medical Examiner determines that an autopsy must be done on a person (after legal death, of course), it is difficult to prevent, and the "leavings" remaining after an autopsy generally leave little hope for revival. (Alcor did succeed in preventing a full autopsy, but, as I recall, it required a sympathetic judge, and one cannot count on having a sympathetic judge readily available.) Messages 15 1393 1396 1401 1617 concern potential legal protections from autopsies, including the "Certificate of Religious Belief" forbidding autopsy that the Venturists distribute. Alvin Steinberg, of Alcor New York, recently pointed out that we now have greater legal support for the religious objection to autopsy. That support cames from the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993", which was passed on Nov. 16 of this year and applies to all government bodies and officials within the USA. Although this Act still allows a government official to "substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" (i.e. do an autopsy) when there is a "compelling state interest": (a) it requires the government to *demonstrate* that "compelling state interest" rather than proceeding without any such justification, and (b) it requires the government to use "the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." This could make the difference between a viable suspension and freezing chopped meat. For the full text of that law (only about 6K bytes), send email to me with the Subject line "CRYOMSG 2500.1". Kevin Q. Brown INTERNET or Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2500