X-Message-Number: 31609
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: How can we help those who cannot afford cryonics?
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:35:03 +0100

> From: "Jordan Sparks" 

> <del>
>  A hospital pathologist can remove the brain and submerge it in
> fixative.
> <del>

I suspect that hospital surgeons or pathologists may well be willing to
consider removing and preserving a brain from a dead person, but they would
then consult the hospital's legal department. People in the legal department
are on salaries regardless of what they actually do. Their job is to avoid
the hospital being sued. They would be very ready to forbid the surgeon from
removing and storing the brain because prohibition is quick and easy to do.
They would have no conscience over the fact that it results in the certain
annihilation of the individual. In the unlikely event that a lawyer would
have a slight twinge of conscience, it would be quickly dismissed with the
thought "That will never work".

There is very little likelihood of the relatives or representatives of the
deceased being able to sue them in the courts for forbidding preservation.
However if they allowed the brain to be so preserved, there is a higher
probability of someone (probably in an official capacity) suing just to make
a name for himself. Such litigation is enormously newsworthy.

Of course in either case there is always the possibility of someone acting
against them outside the law, particularly if the failure to preserve, or
action to preserve, offended some active and violent religious sect. But
lawyers usually feel safe in that they are "protected" by the law. But in
reality although someone who physically attacks them may be running the risk
of being locked up for a very long time, this will be of little practical
benefit to a victim who is either dead or permanently disabled.

No one in the cryonics movement can act outside the law, as much as they may
like to. They and the movement are too vulnerable.

This leaves as the only option trying to put the hospital legal department
in a position of having to do far more work if they refuse the request of
trying to preserve someone, regardless of whether they want full
cryopreservation or brain fixation. Unlike fee earning lawyers, salaried
lawyers get the same income regardless of the effort they apply to their
jobs. Therefore they would then be motivated to let the patient be
preserved.

Hopefully there are some lawyers on this list who can take the time to
suggest how this may be achieved.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=31609