The Autopsy Issue in Cryonics

One of the many ways in which we are far less free than our recent ancestors is that government employees regularly run roughshod over private agreements. For example, local officials essentially act as through they own your body in the case of autopsies, which presents a large issue for people who want to be cryopreserved on clinical death: "The nation's leading [cryonics] organization lost its bid Thursday to prevent an autopsy on a 48-year-old man who wanted his body frozen until he could be brought back to life. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Martha J. Cook told the county medical examiner to resume the autopsy on Michael Ned Miller, which was interrupted shortly after it began by a call from Alcor Life Extension Foundation Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz. Cook denied Alcor's request for a stay pending an appeal of her order. 'The court will not interfere with (the medical examiner's) duty,' Cook said. ... the judge took no testimony. She said the law giving medical examiners the right to override private preferences about autopsies is clear. ... Alcor argued in court documents that an autopsy would 'seriously impair the cryonic process' and 'frustrate the purpose' of the body freezing: to keep his body preserved until some point in the distant future when scientists learn how to fix what killed him." Sadly, we live in age in which men serve laws, rather than vice versa.

Link: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1375253.html

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