It’ll Only Happen Over Your Dead Body? Fine; Sign Here

A story in the paper the other day by Carol McGraw began as follows:

“A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has given renewed life to a group that freezes the dead in hopes they may be revived someday.”

An exemplary lead: brief, informative, and with a nice touch of irony.

The story went on to describe the legal situation as it stands; but understandably it left the philosophical implications open to individual reflection.

To recapitulate, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, of Riverside, had sued to force the state Department of Health Services to issue death certificates and body disposal permits for those who want their bodies frozen after death. Judge Aurelio Munoz ruled that it is illegal for the state to deny such services. The state must either appeal or comply.

While the legal contest remains undecided, surely the case will cause much speculation on the wisdom of cyronics, as the practice of freezing the dead for future resuscitation is called.

It may seem a morbid subject, but on the other hand the prospect of a return to life must bring joy, at first glance, to the human heart. Who would not like, after death, to be restored to life in a better world of scientific wonders, one of which would be the final defeat of disease.

Suppose one dies of cancer. His body is frozen, and 20 or 50 or 100 years later, when science has eliminated cancer, one is brought back to healthy life. The same would apply to emphysema, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease or any other fatal ailment. As each was conquered in the laboratory, its victims would be thawed out and restored to life.

It does sound far out; but even cyronics critics concede that technology may some day be able to accomplish it. But, they say, today’s technology cannot prepare the bodies for future revival.

Whatever the feasibility of cyronics, one must decide whether one wants to give it a try. I doubt that bodies could be frozen without their owners’ consent.

Of course the advantages are obvious. One would have a second chance in a sound body. One could eat, drink and be merry once again. I assume, though, that rejuvenation is not part of the package. If one died at 70, one would be revived at 70. So, unless the frailties of old age had also been eliminated, one’s activities and one’s future might be limited.

But I foresee more troubling complications. What if a man died at 40, for example, leaving a lusty wife behind, and were revived 10 years later, only to find her remarried. This idea has often been treated humorously in the movies, but the returning husband is usually a ghost, not flesh and blood. I doubt that it would be humorous in real life.

Someone like Judge Munoz would undoubtedly be called on to rule whether a woman whose husband had been frozen could legally remarry; or whether a frozen husband, on being thawed, could demand his wife back. However the court might rule, I do not see an amicable solution to this problem.

Also, Alcor charges $100,000 to freeze a body, a sum that is usually paid out of the deceased’s insurance money, which he has previously signed over to the cyronics company. To conjure up the lusty wife again, one wonders how she might like being deprived of $100,000 in insurance money just so her dead husband can be turned into an iceberg.

Perhaps it is unfair to refer to the wife as lusty. Any wife, I should think, however modest, might resent being prevented from making another marital alliance while her husband is frozen--perhaps for decades. She would doubly resent it, I suspect, if he had signed away his insurance money to pay for his refrigeration.

There is a cheaper way to go, according to McGraw’s story. One may elect to have only his head frozen. This truncated process costs only $30,000. However, the candidate must wait for a technology that could not only restore life but also recreate his discarded body. By the time that breakthrough occurs, the chap’s wife would long since be dead herself--unless, of course, she had also elected to be frozen.

It is possible, I suppose, that a man and wife could be thawed out simultaneously, assuming that both had died of the same disease. In that case a joyous reunion might be expected.

But how would a couple manage if they came back to life 50 or 100 years from now? Their heads, once unfrozen, would be filled with the myths and realities of 1990. Could they cope with the world of 2040--if indeed there is a world in 2040? They would be so overwhelmed by new technologies and new political and social isms, I’m afraid, that they would have to be institutionalized. Very probably marriage itself would be a thing of the past.

I think I’ll just sign my insurance policy over to my wife, with my best wishes.