July the 13th 2001,
To Elizabeth,
tanks for answering the form called post mortem request for suspension.
The most positive item in your response was that you pointed out that your father had been embalmed, and how to contact the embalmer. Did you mention that when you spoke to the American Cryonics Society or to other cryonisists? It is the first thing you should mention. That would immediately give you much more support from other cryonicists, who for the most part otherwise will see no sense in freezing your father.
There are however, a few questions I have to follow up on:
There are many questions you left unanswered. Please answer these,
they were included for a reason. E.g. the answers are needed so to better decide upon and implement the best solution.
You list yourself as the next of kin, and as your father's spouse.
There must be a misunderstanding. Spouse means wife or husband (and not legal custodian).
Your mother is the next of kin and she was his spouse.
You do not include your mother's name, address and phone number
nor your sister's name, address and phone number.
Do you all live together in the same house?
And you list as unknown the number of children your father had.
Is there any particular reason why you are not answering these questions?
Are your mother and sister opposing your attempt to have your father or a tissue sample from him frozen?
It is important that I get the names and phone numbers for your mother and your sister,
so that I can verify that you all agree upon what to do, or that they have signed over to you
the right to decide what that is to be done with your father's corpse.
I got a letter from the person in Melbourne who has the authority to permit exhumations.
he raised some serious questions as to whether or not you and your mother and sister agree upon what to do, and as to whether you can afford to go ahead with a cryonic suspension.
I assume all the figures you listed as answers to my questions are Australian dollars,
which have about 50% of the value of American Dollars (USD).
Based on your answers, I don't see how you can afford to borrow USD 45,000 or more.
Such a loan would easily imply monthly payments to the bank of about USD 500, (based on 14% payments annually in interest and down payments) or twice that in Australian dollars.
Since you stated that you need a loan to finance the cryonic storage,
and since you have not listed the banks name or the loan officer to contact, I assume that you have not got the loan yet, and that you might not get it.
I have posted your case to the Cryonet, so to see if we could find someone willing and able to assist you and/or share with you the expense of setting up a new facility. Several have expressed interest in joining later but it still seems you will have to cover the initial expenses yourself. And I do not see how you can afford that on the salary you have listed,
unless you inherited something from your father and want to spend that.
Is that what you meant with the house? Is that a house you and your mother and sister have inherited? Or is it now all in your mother's name?
You have to provide much more detail answers to the form I sent you, and some proof
that you can afford to go on, otherwise there is no sense in setting up a contract and lining up all the means.
If it turns out that you can't afford full body suspension:
If you really want to pursue this case further,
let me then suggest that you then focus on something you can afford:
Contact the hospital in Australia, and find out if they have stored any cell samples, tissue samples (biopsies etc.) and blood samples from your father.
Then make arrangements to have these preserved either at the same hospital,
or at a tissue bank in Australia. (sperm bank/bio bank/blood bank etc. with cryo freezers.)
I am sure that Cells-4-Life, American Cryonics Society and Cryonics Institute would be willing to store such cell samples in liquid nitrogen for you too, in case you do not find someone in Australia that will offer to store these long run at a temperature of minus 135 degrees Celcius or lower. Thus I am forwarding your letter to trusted people at Alcor/Cells-4-Life, ACS and C.I.
The brief comments I make here, will be posted to the Internet, so that people can see that you are for real, but your answer to the form will not be posted to the Internet. And I have not posted the one earlier letter you marked private either, but just passed this on to 4 selected people at the above organizations as you authorized. I have not posted anything with your phone number or address. But your name and e-mail address I have posted along with your requests for assistance and my responses to these.
In case no cell and blood samples have been preserved, you could apply for a brief exhumation so that 10 to 20 small tissue samples could be taken from the leg/thigh of your father. He could then be burried and the tissue samples could be frozen and stored in Australia or in the United States. Such exhumations have been permitted in the past e.g. in Canada.
The above solution would cost far less than what it would cost to freeze the whole body.
And since the body has been dead for 4 months now, you might accomplish as much
or as little by preserving the cell samples as you would accomplish by preserving the whole body, unless of course your father received an exceptionally good embalming, and a good dry casket.
Of course cloning of dead tissue samples is not yet possible and might never become possible, legal or affordable. But if you want to gamble otherwise, then at least it won't cost that much to have a few cell samples taken, frozen and stored in liquid nitrogen.
Of course if all you preserve are a few cell samples, then your father's personality and mental content would be gone (as they probably are by now anyway), or at least these could not be restored from his brain, but would have to be restored to a clone from other sources,
as I have repeatedly pointed out in our correspondance.
Of course such an approach would only make sense if one also take systematic steps to preserve other sources of information about your father: e.g. pictures, videos, diaries, personal writings, achievments, and an overview over what you, your sister and your mother and others who knew him, remember about him and his wills and interests and knowledge and skills etc. Maybe you could write a systematic overview over your father's life, goals, motivations, moral system, wills, achievments, etc... with exhibits?
Maybe you could make it easier for others to preserve cell samples and valuable information in the future?
Sincerely,
Trygve Bauge
Ps. I am willing to assist you, but we should not waste time on planning solutions that you can not afford to implement.
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