X-Message-Number: 8760
From: "Micheal B. O'Neal" <>
Subject: When suspended animation is perfected.
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 10:46:19 -0600 (CST)

Here is my view of the situation that will most likely arise when
suspended animation becomes a recognized medical procedure.  

The AMA will develop a set of guidelines describing the situations under 
which the procedure is ethically appropriate (patient relatively young, 
suffering from a condition which most experts expect can be successfully 
treated in no more than ten years, etc.).  

Doctors who exceed these guidelines will be threatened with malpractice.

Cryonics will continue to be very much a "fringe" idea since our definition 
of death is so very different from the vast majority of society.

In fact, I expect pressure against cryonics societies to dramatically 
increase (not decrease) when suspended animation is perfected.  Right now
we are "harmless" kooks who freeze dead bodies.  We are treated as a
curiosity.  When "medical" suspended animation becomes possible, the
medical establishment will attempt to exert complete control over how it 
is used.  We will then be seen as a real threat to their world view
and they will try to destroy us.

It seems to me our only hope is to recognize this potential problem and
to try to build cryonics into a strong movement using incremental research 
results.  

If we are not strong by the time reversible suspended animation "breaks" 
we will be in deep trouble.

Mike O'Neal

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