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


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