X-Message-Number: 7018 Date: Fri, 04 Oct 96 11:41:44 From: Steve Bridge <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #7014 - #7015 To CryoNet >From Steve Bridge, Alcor October 4, 1996 In reply to: Message #7014 Subject: Moving slowly closer to signing up... Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 14:04:38 -0500 From: Will Dye <> > I've just renewed my driver's license, and on the back of Nebraska > licenses they have a small area for notes about organ donations. > I knew that if I got signed up in the next year or so, I should > have something there about contacting a cryonics provider. But > I have not selected a provider, and I didn't even have a list of > their names & how they wanted to be contacted. Will, driver's license statements are probably unreliable, and possibly counter-productive, for cryonics, at least right now; someone in a hurry for a nice, fresh kidney might not follow up on that call but might just say, "Oh, good, he's an organ donor." You need something or someone more active on your side. > Finally, I remembered one phone number: 1-800-TOP-CARE. I must > have seen it on Brian Wowk's .sig or something. So under the title > "Organ(s) Donated:" on my license, it reads "CALL 1-800-TOP-CARE > IMMEDIATELY". I realize that CryoCare can't suspend me without > funding, and I'm not committing to a provider yet. A cryonics organization would still not have the legal authority to accept your remains as any kind of donation -- without your wife's specific authorization. You haven't executed an anatomical donation. Certainly language which requests that the hospital "call" someone does not constitute a donation or an authorization for anything except a phone call. > 1) CryoCare may get the unhappy cadaver of a cryonicist > who didn't quite make it. Use it for research, if that's useful > for you. If they DID get your remains with no funding, Will, they might not be very happy about it. That would be expensive and time-consuming no matter what they did with you. But in any case, what you have done won't give them that option. You will need to do something more formal. At Alcor, we use a form called "Declaration of Intent," which states that, while you haven't made specific arrangements, it is your intent that upon your death your remains be preserved in cryonic suspension. Some states have laws that a deceased individual's stated wishes for disposition *must* be followed, assuming they are not illegal or a risk to the public health, and do not create a financial hardship for whomever is in charge of disposition. (In other words, at a minimum, you still have to have separate funding in place.) In 1990 Alcor had a situation where this form would have saved someone's life. A California couple had taken sign-up forms from Alcor but had signed nothing. The wife, who had cancer -- unknown to us, suddenly went into a coma and was near death. Right after she was declared legally dead, the husband signed her paperwork on her behalf and she was suspended. 6 months later a copy of her will was discovered which stated that she did NOT want to be frozen. A sister sued to have her removed from suspension. (There are many complexities here irrelevant to the issue at hand, and so I won't repeat the entire story.) After four years of court battles and appeals by the husband, the California courts determined that there was no evidence that the woman had changed her mind from the statement in her will. The court agreed that if she HAD signed something which showed new thinking that it would be the state and family's duty to leave her in suspension. Instead she was removed from suspension and buried. Thus, the Declaration of Intent. You may obtain one from Alcor; that should provide at least one step better. However, it still doesn't give CryoCare or anyone else specific the right to receive your body as a donation, even for research. By itself, all it would do is give cryonicists in general the right to fight a court battle against your wife, if she is that strong against it. Don't bet on "cryonicists in general" taking up a collection to fight your wife. Would she prevent you from donating your body to a medical school? Is she set on you being buried or just opposed to you being frozen? Or is she *really* opposed to you having fun in the future with other post-cryo babes instead of her? Why not go ahead and fill out paperwork with your favorite cryonics organization and get your financing in place? You could probably have some kind of arrangement where you don't *officially* become a member until you or your wife somehow complete the authorization. At least this prevents you or your cryonics organization from having to do *everything* at the last minute. In Alcor's case, I would be willing to condense your wife's decision down to one sheet of paper and hand it to her at the hospital. I would say something along the lines of, "You know how much Will wanted this. But because he loved you, he left it in your hands. For Will, please sign this." Grant you, that's not how I would protect MY life; but it might be an option for you. Anyway, I'm just trying to get you and others to think more creatively. Steve Bridge Stephen Bridge, President () Alcor Life Extension Foundation Non-profit cryonic suspension services since 1972. 7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale AZ 85260-6916 Phone (602) 922-9013 (800) 367-2228 FAX (602) 922-9027 for general requests http://www.alcor.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7018