X-Message-Number: 954
Date: 05 Jul 92 06:38:40 EDT
From: "Steven B. Harris" <>
Subject: "Outing" Cryonicists

 
Dear Cryonet Readers:

   There are certain situations involving sex and death in which
privacy is demanded.  In these situations, when privacy is
denied, people go through hell.  Long ago, anti-abortionists
discovered that the tactic of focusing the media spotlight on
ordinary women who had never been in the public eye, as they
sought to carry out an intensely private act which (at the very
best) does not have any social approval connected with it.  This
tactic has been very successful at causing a lot of pain.  So
successful, in fact, that it is now THE major tactic in the anti-
abortionist's bag of tricks.

   It seems that we are now faced with a very similar situation
in cryonics.  People who are dying, and the families and loved-
ones of people who are dying, do NOT want to be in the media
spotlight.  If they are engaged in something like cryonics which
does not have social approval and which is embarrassing to them,
then they REALLY, REALLY do not want to be in the media spot-
light.  Nor do _institutions_ want to be connected with acts
which have to do with sex or death and which do not have social
approval; and when institutions are so connected, there is no
limit to the number of people they will hurt to be disconnected. 
There is nothing quite as vindictive as an embarrassed institu-
tion.  (A homely example: at UCLA, when the media spotlight was
focused on Jerry Leaf and myself in connection with an embarrass-
ing cryonic suspension, Jerry found himself fired and I found
myself suspended from clinical duties as a physician, and up in
front of a Dean's Academic Committee).  

   These things are not fun, but all these things-- embarrassed
families, embarrassed institutions, hurt people, happen when
cryonics is dragged before the media in cases involving people
who are not ready to be involved.  To repeat: focusing media
attention on a cryonics patient and family who do not want to be
in the limelight is very similar to bringing the TV cameras to
the abortion clinic.  It isn't just an annoyance.  On the
contrary, I cannot think of anything which, if done in a syste-
matic way, would hurt cryonics more in 1992.  It is *exactly* the
sort of thing which would be done by some fanatical enemies of
cryonics, if we had any.   Thus, if someone is actually doing
this now who claims to be in sympathy to the movement, and
persists on doing it, even when told what damage it is causing,
then in my opinion either:

1) This person really has become an active and malevolent enemy
of cryonics, or

2) This person has such a need for attention that he is willing
to cause even irritation and hatred within an organization, if
that will cause others to take notice of him, or

3) This person has such a perverse self-hatred that he is willing
to cause others to go through any amount of pain, if it is pain
he can identify with.  One thinks here of the homosexual who
delights in destroying lives and careers by "outing" fellow
homosexuals, even those who are minding their own business and
not engaging in any great public hypocrisy.  In this case, we
have someone "outing" cryonicists.  Or, 

4) Perhaps this person just does not have any feeling for his
fellow humans at all, and is someone who (so to speak) simply
does not have his empathy bone connected to his head bone.  In
this case, we are dealing with a sociopath.

   In all these cases, however, drastic action needs to be taken. 
The flow of sensitive information to this person needs to be cut
off, and a general letter to the members of Alcor may even be
necessary eventually to do that.  If this doesn't work, and this
sort of behavior continues, it might well be time to consider
that the law still to some degree protects private citizens who
do not seek the public eye, from having their privacy disrupted
in certain ways (believe it or not, just because you make the
news, even in this day and age, that doesn't mean you're ipso
facto a public figure).  There may be actionable grounds in some
of this, and there is nothing like having to fork over the
retainer for an expensive attorney to defend against a civil
suit, to remind someone that what he's doing has now gone beyond
friendly debate and difference of opinion.  Some people simply do
not learn any other way, which is one reason we (*sigh*) have
lawyers to begin with.

   In any case, this has got to stop.



                                  Steve Harris

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