Leveraging Article 115 of the
Swiss Criminal Code to Perfect
Cryonic Pre-Treatment
Franco Cortese
International Coordinator, Cryonics Switzerland
CryonicsSwitzerland.com
The State of the Art in Cryonics
Pre-Treatment is in Perpetual Stasis
Currently a declaration of death must precede cryostorage
preparation for cryonics patients. This involves:

waiting until clinical death

declaring it


transporting the patient’s body to their chosen cryonics facility,
and finally
beginning cryostorage preparation (reducing body
temperature and cardiopulmonary support, blood washout and
replacement with an organ preservation solution, perfusing
the body with cryoprotectant and finally cool-down to
cryogenic temperatures).
But having to wait until the definitive onset of clinical
death, a declaration of death and subsequent
transport to a cryonics facility causes a number of
imminently-preventable types of damage (i.e.
structural damage and informational loss), ultimately
reducing the probability (or ease) of eventual revival,
and reducing the maximum obtainable accuracy of
informational models constructed from future analysis
of patients' cryopreserved organs and tissues.
These types of damage and the processes by which
they progress are very well-studied, and we know the
most optimal way of preventing them: beginning
cryostorage preparation prior to the onset of clinical
death.
We have the technology and the techniques, today, to
preserve significantly more structural information in
cryonically-preserved organs and tissues than we
actually do preserve today in practice.
We know how to practice much better cryonics than we are
currently practicing, and how to significantly increase the
probability (or ease) of eventual revival and the amount
of structural information we can preserve through
cryostorage.
It isn’t even a case of having the technology, but requiring
increased funding and research attention to really bring it
to form.
We have the technology and we have it in a state sufficient
for use today, and the only barrier preventing us from
using it is a legislative one.
What’s The Damage?
During the time between clinical death and the beginning of
cryostorage, a number of different kinds of damage
occurs in tissues and organs. These harmful byproducts
and types of damage destroy significant structural
information, especially in organs which have a high
degree of structural density on the level of cells and cellpopulations (e.g. neurons).
This ultimately (1) decreases the probability (or ease) of
eventual revival (i.e. by damaging cellular structures and
processes) and (2) decreasing the maximum possible
informational resolution (or precision) of future models
based upon structural data read from cryopreserved
tissues in future.
As Ben Best explains:
“If a person is declared legally dead immediately upon cessation
of heartbeat & respiration, nearly all of the cells in that person's
brain may still be alive. Organ transplantation would not be
feasible were it not for the fact that legal death does not
declare the death of all cells, tissues and organs -- including
the brain.
But within 5-10 minutes without oxygen or nutrient degenerative
processes begin in the brain. The main initial degenerative
processes, however, are in the circulatory system -- blood
agglutination and vascular spasm. Brain ultrastructure can
actually be maintained up to one hour without oxygen or
nutrient. Attempts to restore blood circulation within even 1015 minutes can be damaging. In reperfusion injury
restoration of circulation after a long delay actually causes the
blood oxygen to oxidize tissues rather than revive them.
Within a few hours at room temperature, release of arachidonic
acid from membranes and lactic acid produced by anaerobic
metabolism (metabolism in the absence of oxygen) increases
the acidity of tissues, including brain tissue. Lysosomes (acidic
organelles containing hydrolytic enzymes) burst, further
degrading tissue. Anaerobic clostridium bacteria (gangrene)
accelerates tissue degredation. Within 24 hours at room
temperature a dead person's brain will have virtually dissolved.
Cryonics procedures must be applied much sooner for there to
be a reasonable hope of success.”
– Ben Best in “Cryonics Protocol, A Summary”. Retrieved from:
http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/summary.html.
Contemporary Pre-Treatment Strategies
Ischemic damage and reperfusion injury are today minimized
largely by pharmacological and methodological means,
including the application of antioxidants and methods of
slowing metabolism such as lowering body temperature.
There are a number of contemporary strategies of minimizing
ischemic damage and reperfusion therapy, but none are
incredibly effective. If the legal necessity of having to wait for a
declaration of death to begin transportation and preparation for
cryonic storage could be avoided or obviated, this would
constitute a much more ideal solution.
While today's pre-treatment strategies significantly decrease the
damage and informational loss that tissues and organs
undergo while waiting for cryostorage preparation, in practice a
significant amount of structural-functional damage and
informational loss still occurs.
Leveraging Existing Legislative
Infrastructure in Switzerland to
Perfect Cryonic Pre-Treatment
The problems caused by having to wait for the
onset of clinical death is one ubiquitously
acknowledged by the cryonics community.
The utility of beginning cryonic preparations prior
to clinical death is explicitly recognized by
cryonics organizations, who would like to
provide the best services to their clients as
possible.
"Current legal and medical criteria for pronouncing
death are usually irrelevant to the patient’s ultimate
prognosis if cryonic suspension is begun promptly
and premortem conditions… have not obliterated
brain structure. However, in practice the necessity to
wait until such criteria are met may result in serious
or even irreversible injury in specific cases.”
Source: Alcor. (2000). Cryonics: Reaching for
Tomorrow. Retrieved from:
http://www.alcor.org/CRFTnew/crft08.htm
One solution proposed by James Hughes, Executive
Director of the IEET, is the legalization of assisted suicide
to allow for the beginning of cryonics preparation prior to
the onset of clinical death (or immediately following it,
thereby eliminating the time spent transporting patients'
bodies to their chosen cryonics facility:
"I suggest that it could be acceptable to cryonicists that the
frozen continue to be defined as dead if assisted suicide
can be legalized. Under a liberal assisted suicide policy
cryonicists might be allowed to carry out suspension
before a declaration of death, preserving the maximum
amount of neural information." –
Source: James Hughes in "The Future of Death: Cryonics
and the Telos of Liberal Individualism" (Journal of
Evolution and Technology, Vol. 6).
Hughes cites data indicating that Americans are
increasingly in favor of legalizing assisted
suicide, going from under 40% approval (for
legal assisted suicide for consenting
terminally-ill patients) in 1947 to over 70%
approval in 1997.
This is true, but fighting for legalized assisted
suicide in North America is still a formidable
fight, and not necessarily the solution we
should be fighting for.
Source: Benson, John M. 1999. “The Polls: Trends in End of Life
Issues,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Summer 63(2):263−268.
One historical case attempting to utilize assisted suicide to
significantly improve cryonics pretreatment is in Donaldson v.
Van de Kamp*:

“In Donaldson, Thomas A. Donaldson sought the
declaration of a constitutional right to premortem
cryonic suspension of his body and the assistance of
others in achieving that state. Donaldson, a forty-sixyear-old mathematician and computer software
scientist, suffers from a malignant brain tumor that was
diagnosed by his physicians in 1988.
* See: Griffith, D. B. (1992). Donaldson v. Van de Kamp. Issues
L. & Med., 8, 105)


This tumor is inoperable and continues to grow and
invade his brain tissue. Donaldson's condition will
gradually deteriorate into a persistent vegetative state
and will ultimately result in death. Physicians predict his
probable death by August 1993.
“Donaldson petitioned the California courts, seeking a
declaration that he had a constitutional right to achieve
cryonic suspension before his natural death. His doctors
believe that if Donaldson waits until his natural death to
be suspended, future reanimation will be futile because
the tumor will have destroyed his brain. In addition,
Donaldson's doctors sought an injunction against
criminal prosecution for their participation in the
suspension, because Donaldson, once suspended,
would be considered "dead" under California law...

“The trial court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a
cause of action, and Donaldson appealed to the California
Court of Appeals. Because the cryonic process would
necessarily involve physician-assisted death, or the aiding,
advising, or encouraging of another to commit suicide, the
appellate court affirmed the ruling of the trial court, holding
that Donaldson did not have a constitutional right to assisted
death. Additionally, in light of Donaldson's First Amendment
challenge to the statute, the court upheld the criminal statute
prohibiting the aiding, advising, or encouraging of another to
commit suicide."
Source: Pommer III, R. W. (1993). Donaldson v. Van de Kamp:
cryonics, assisted suicide, and the challenges of medical
science. J. Contemp. Health L. & Pol'y, 9, 589.
This case exemplifies a few things.

One is that in special cases, the inability to begin
preparation for cryostorage before declaration of death
can cause a disproportionate amount of structuralfunctional damage and information loss far exceeding
that sustained through typical ischemic damage and
reperfusion injury. In this case, a brain tumor destroyed
not only non-negligible amounts of information and
caused non-negligible amounts of damage to tissues and
organs, but actually caused unsustainable amounts of
informational loss and structural damage causing a vast
decrease in the probability (or ease) of eventual revival.
So in some cases, the ability to begin cryonic
pretreatment prior to a declaration of death is a life and
death matter, determining ultimately whether that patient
can expect to be revivable or not.


This case also exemplifies the cryonics community's
nearly-ubiquitous desire for the availability of legal
assisted suicide as a means of improving cryonics pretreatment, and the fact that some desire it so much to
initiate legal action on their own.
But perhaps most importantly, it demonstrates the
difficulty in establishing the legality of assisted suicide,
and suggests that establishing such legality is the most
difficult part of the fight.
Thus, utilizing the legislative infrastructure for assisted
suicide (and thereby for cryostorage preparation before
post-mortem conditions like ischemic damage and
reperfusion injury result) already in place in countries like
Switzerland is ultimately an easier solution to implement
than establishing legal assisted suicide from scratch in
North America.
The Legal Basis for Assisted Suicide
in Switzerland
The legality of euthanasia in Switzerland derives from Article 115 of the
Swiss Criminal Code:
“Inciting and assisting suicide:
Any person who for selfish motives incites or assists another to commit
or attempt to commit suicide is, if that other person thereafter
commits or attempts to commit suicide, liable to a custodial sentence
not exceeding five years or to a monetary penalty .1
1 Term in accordance with No II 1 para. 3 of the Federal Act of 13 Dec. 2002, in force since 1 Jan.
2007 ( 3535; ). This amendment has been taken into account throughout the Second Book.
Source: Swiss Criminal Code. Retrieved from:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/e/rs/311_0/a115.html.
Article 115 has been in effect since 1942, but wasn’t interpreted
as a legal basis for organizations providing assisted suicide as
a service until the 1980s.
Since then a number of organizations have formed, offering
euthanasia as a service to both Swiss and non-Swiss citizens.
However, there are as of yet no cryonics facilities in
Switzerland.
Our proposed solution: Cryonics Switzerland. CS was founded by
Dr. Charles Tandy, Editor in Chief of Ria University Press. Dr
Tandy has done extensive scholarship on the topic of cryonics.
He founded CS with the long-term aim of establishing a Swiss
cryonics facility leveraging the legality of assisted suicide in
Switzerland so as to begin cryostorage before or immediately
following clinical death (ideally in Switzerland to eliminate
ischemic damage and reperfusion injury incurred during the
transportation of patients from Switzerland to the cryonics
facility they are signed-up with).
Dr. Tandy brought me on board in October 2013 as
International Coordinator, and our activities are currently
limited to publicizing the idea and seeking feedback from
other members of the cryonics, legal and other relevant
communities.
However, longer-term plans would ideally involve the official
formation of an organization and facility located in
Switzerland that provides the dual service of assistedsuicide and cryonic storage, without a legally-necessitated
lag-time between clinical death and the beginning of
preparation for cryonic storage.
We would, however, welcome analogous initiatives by
existing cryonics organizations like Alcor, which would
obviate the eventual need for Cryonics Switzerland to
found such facilities in Switzerland.
Options for Formation
Option 1:
Establish cryonics facility in Switzerland and use
one of the existing assisted suicide services
already established in Switzerland.
There are several existing assisted suicide
organizations in Switzerland that could be
used, including 'Exit', 'Life Circle' and
Switzerland's
largest
assisted-suicide
organization, 'Dignitas'.
Option 2:
Provide both (1) means of assisted suicide and
(2) cryonic storage facilities.
The most ideal option would be to set up a
cryonics service in Switzerland that provides
both a means for assisted suicide and that
operates cryonics facilities.
This could eliminate all waiting-time between
clinical death and the beginning of cryostorage.
The other options require a span of time
between the onset of clinical death and the
beginning or preparation for cryostorage.

Even if a cryonics facility was established in
Switzerland, and not an extremely far distance
from Swiss assisted suicide facilities, a very
short travel time could still incur significant
ischemic damage and reperfusion injury. For
instance, reperfusion injury can result from
ischemic periods lasting as little as 10
minutes.*
* Ben Best (n.d). Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury in
Cryonics. Retrieved from:
http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/ischemia.html.
Being the provider of the means for assisted
suicide is also ideal because it would increase
operational autonomy and allow a Swiss
cryonics organization to remain independent of
extra external services. This is largely an
anecdotal point, but the use of external
services could become problematic if external
assisted-suicide services engage in activities
that increase public controversy, thereby
increasing the risk of future legislative reform
regarding the status of legal suicide.
For instance, the leading provider of euthanasia in Switzerland,
Dignitas, has been accused of engaging in a number of
controversial practices and activities.
A nurse employed by Dignitas for 2.5 years made a series of
accusations (all of which Dignitas denies) that brought Dignitas
into some controversy.
The ex-employee claimed that wealthy patients left "vast sums"
of money to the owner of Dignitas, Ludwig Minelli, in addition
to the standard non-recurring fee of $5,263.16.
The ex-employee also alleged that one incident involving a new
type of machine left one patient suffering for 70 hours, which is
what prompted her resignation. In September 2007, when
Dignitas was evicted and locked out of three Swiss flats,
Minelli allegedly provided the assisted-suicide procedure to
two German clients in a car instead.
In 2010, 60 cremation urns bearing the Dignitas logo were found
in Lake Zurich, after the ex-employee told The Times 18
months earlier that Dignitas had disposed of 300 urns in the
lake. This was after another incident in 2008 where 2 Dignitas
employees were actually caught attempting to pour the ashes
of 20 cremated patients into Lake Zurich.
In addition to these activities, Dignitas has also engaged in
activities that, while legal, nonetheless risk increasing public
controversy over the issue of legal assisted suicide in
Switzerland. One example is filming and televising the death of
Craig Ewert and his wife, who died together as per their
arrangements as Dignitas clients. The filming and televised
broadcast of their death is neither illegal nor immoral, but it
does risk inciting public controversy over issues (e.g. televising
a real death) that aren’t even at the heart of the issue.
Despite the overwhelming consensus among
Swiss citizens supporting legal assisted suicide
for both Swiss citizens and foreigners,
euthanasia is controversial enough as it is, and
doesn't need it's leading Swiss organization
adding to the controversy with such activities.
So while it's an anecdotal point, especially
considering the consensus approval among
Swiss citizens for legal assisted suicide,
providing assisted suicide services 'in-house'
would eliminate these worries.
Option 3:
Act as a mediating service between existing
Swiss assisted-suicide services and existing
non-Swiss cryonic storage facilities.
One advantage this option offers is low logistical and
operational requirements and low overhead expenses.
One disadvantage is that it provides the least operational
autonomy, necessitating that we depend upon external
services for both cryonic preparation and storage as well
as for providing a means of assisted suicide. Another
disadvantage is that this option eliminates the possibility
of minimizing the travel time and distance between the
application of a means of assisted suicide and the
beginning of cryostorage preparation.

Overall, we feel Option 1 to be the most
optimal. While it is the most expensive
option, it allows for maximum operational
control. This would allow us to make the
means of assisted suicide available at
the site where preparation for cryonic
storage begins, thereby eliminating all
patient-transportation time entirely and
hopefully eliminating ischemic damage
and reperfusion injury to negligible levels.
Other Relevant Laws & Requirements
There are a number of other laws bearing
relevance to assisted suicide in
Switzerland that have to be accounted for
to ensure that the present proposal
doesn’t neglect any other relevant Swiss
laws and regulations.
Altruistic Motive
One of the provisions of article 115 is that the motive for
providing the means of assisted suicide must be
unselfish. Despite the fact that we suggest leveraging
existing infrastructure for an as-yet-unacknowledged use
(i.e. to vastly improve cryonic pre-treatment), our intended
use provides very defensible grounds for altruistic intent,
and indeed can be argued to provide more benefits to
patients and less ambiguous and qualitative (and thus
more defensible) benefits as well.
Because the absence of personal gain is a prerequisite, it is
likely ideal for any such organization to be established as
a non-profit entity. It is not certain or unambiguous,
however, that forming the organization as a for-profit
entity would challenge the altruistic-motive prerequisite.
Why This Proposal Constitutes a
Defensible Altruistic Motive
The majority of patients who utilize one of the services providing
the means for euthanasia do so for “weariness of life” rather
than for particular mental or physical, debilitative illnesses or
conditions.
The second but less-common case, wherein the patient lists a
specific, CDC-recognized disease, illness or condition, is more
defensible on the grounds that such conditions are recognized
by the wider medical community, are known to cause
qualitative suffering, and are typically quantifiable in order to
be diagnosed in the first place (this is especially true for
debilitative physiological conditions, and less so for some
mental conditions wherein the physiological basis or correlates
of the condition are still ambiguous). These three aspects
make them more defensible as a source of suffering from a
legal standpoint.
Likewise, the use of assisted suicide to provide more effective
cryonic pretreatment arguably qualifies as a more defensible
and less ambiguous altruistic-motive than either of the above
cases (i.e. relief from weariness or life vs. relief from
recognized diseases and conditions) for similar reasons. The
intended use would quantifiably (i.e. demonstrably) improve
both the health and physiological state of the patient when he
or she is revived from cryonic storage, and increase the
likelihood of their being revived at all.

The present proposal provides more benefit than the above
cases because it constitutes, ipso facto, the only case wherein
the use of assisted suicide could actually benefit the future
state of the patient's health, as all other cases involve the
permanent cessation of that patient’s life.


The present proposal provides a less ambiguous benefit than
the above cases, because ischemic damage, reperfusion
injury and their many underlying physiological mechanisms
are very well-studied, recognized by the wider community,
and quantifiably demonstrable (i.e. so one can “prove”
statements about the condition in a more defensible way than
one could for some mental illnesses for instance).
The present proposal can also be argued to provide mental
benefit as well as more definitive physiological benefits, in that
patients would experience significantly less psychological
trauma prior to cryonic storage due to the knowledge of a
higher probability and easy of eventual revival or informational
reconstruction.
It is for these reasons that the intended use of assisted suicide
suggested here is more altruistic than the alternative use of
assisted suicide as a means to relief from weariness of life or
from debilitative diseases, illnesses and conditions.
It is also for these reasons that the use
suggested here is more defensible as
an altruistic motive. It is more defensible
for two reasons:

(1) because it can be cogently argued that the ability to
quantitatively and demonstrably improve the patient’s future
state to health and physiological condition provides more
benefit to patients than the relief from existing ailments;
whereas relief from ailments constitutes a negative definition
of benefit, the present constitutes a positive definition of
benefit;

(2) because the benefits that are incurred are quantitative,
and therefore demonstrable and verifiable by a community
of experts. This is true ipso facto because relief from present
ailments is necessarily non-qualitative, no matter how
quantitative the specific ailment Is (i.e. one can’t yet quantify
suffering in a way recognized by a community of experts),
but the suffering caused by the ailment-in-question is in the
case of better cryonic pretreatment less ambiguous and
more defensible than the suffering caused by, say, mental
illness, because the physiological condition (e.g. ischemic
damage, etc) is itself quantifiable and thus demonstrable. So
whereas one might conceivably argue illegitimacy on the
grounds than a given mental illness does not cause
suffering, on the grounds that its debilitative effects on the
patient’s physiological system are not yet quantitative and
thus not demonstrable and “provable” by a community of
experts, one could demonstrably show the debilitative
effects ischemic damage and related sources of damage
cause.
Patient Must Have 'Legal Capacity'
“Civil Code, Art 16: Legal capacity (Urteilsfähigkeit)
A person is presumed to have capacity to act reasonably, unless
he or she is deemed not to have such capacity because he or
she is a child, suffers from a mental illness, mental infirmity,
drunkenness or a similar condition.
Civil Code, Art 18: Lack of legal capacity (Fehlen der
Urteilsfähigkeit)
A person who lacks legal capacity cannot, unless a statutory
exception applies, enter into any legal transactions.”
Source: Swiss Civil Code. English translation of the provisions of Articles 16 and 18
taken from: Schwarzenegger & Summers (2005 February 3). Criminal law and
Assisted Suicide in Switzerland. Hearing with the Select Committee on the Assisted
Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, House of Lords.
Consequence:
Articles 16 and 18 of the Swiss civil code
indicate that patients must have legal capacity
when they consent to their wish to undergo
assisted suicide, otherwise the legal
transaction of a patient consenting to assisted
suicide could be made void, and the person
administering the means of assisted suicide
could be held criminally responsible for the
intentional killing of the victim as an “indirect
perpetrator” under articles 111-113 of the
Swiss Penal Code.
Patients Must Administer Themselves
Persons and services can only provide the means of assisted
suicide, and not actually apply the means to the patient. The
patient must technically administer the means (e.g. legal
injection) himself. If anyone except the patient themselves
administers (rather than provides) the means of assisted
suicide, “the act no longer constitutes an assisted suicide in
the sense of Art. 115 Penal Code. It is rather a case of direct
active euthanasia, which is an intentional killing request
according to Art. 114 Penal Code.11.0” (Schwarzenegger &
Summers 2005).
Thus the legality of the present proposal could be voided if it
is not the cryonic patients themselves administering the
means of assisted suicide.
Laws on Administering
Pharmaceutics and Narcotics
“Law on Pharmaceutical Products, Art 26: Basic principle
relating to prescribing and dispensing (Grundsatz für
Verschreibung und Abgabe)
The prescribing and dispensing of pharmaceutical products must
be carried out in accordance with the acknowledged rules of
medical and pharmaceutical science.
A pharmaceutical product may only be prescribed, if the state of
health of the consumer or patient is known.”
Article 26 of the Swiss’ Law on Pharmaceutical Products’
indicates provisions that must be followed in administering
pharmaceutical products, such as pharmacological means of
assisted suicide and the provision of pharmacological agents
for cryonics pretreatment.
“Narcotics Law, Art 11: (no title)
1. Medical doctors and veterinarians are obliged to use, dispense
and prescribe drugs only to the extent that is necessary
according to the acknowledged rules of medical science.
2. The same applies for the use and dispensing of drugs by
dentists.”
Article 11 of the Swiss Narcotics Law also bears relevance to the
legality of assisted suicide. Commentary by Schwarzenegger &
Summers on its relevance to the legality of assisted suicide in
Switzerland illuminates its relevance to the present proposal:
“In cases, where a terminal illness is diagnosed, the
acknowledged rules of the medical sciences permit the
prescription of deadly barbiturates to eliminate pain. Thus, the
prescription of barbiturates is not in violation of Art. 26 of the
Law on Pharmaceutical Products and Art. 11 Narcotics Law.
“If no serious anamnesis (medical examinations) of the person
seeking assisted suicide is done, the medical doctor will face
punishment according to the Law on Pharmaceutical Products
and the Narcotics Law. Additionally, his or her licen[s]e can be
revoked under the Cantonal Health Legislation.”
This commentary by Schwarzenegger & Summers indicates that
a basis for doctors providing deadly pharmaceuticals is
established (and thus that a legal basis for the provision of
deadly pharmaceuticals as a means of assisted suicide is
provided) and that as per Article 26, provision 2 of the Swiss
Law on Pharmaceutical Products, a medical examination of the
cryonics patient will be necessary to prove that the patient’s
state of health was known by doctors at the time the
pharmaceutical (in this case death0inducing pharmaceuticals)
was administered.
What are the Prospects for this
Legislation’s Longevity?
How likely is this legislation to be in place in time for a cryonics
facility to be set up in Switzerland?
The legislation has been around since 1942 (though it has only
been used as a legal basis for offering the provision of the
means of euthanasia since the 80s, i.e. on the order of 30-40
years), and today remains non-controversial to citizens.
A referendum to outlaw assisted suicide took place on May 15th
2011, and of 278,000 voters in the Canton of Zurich, 85%
rejected the referendum to ban assisted suicide for both Swiss
and foreign citizens, while 78% rejected the initiative to limit it
exclusively to Swiss citizens. Thus voters are overwhelmingly
in favor of both keeping the legislation and of keeping its
present scope (i.e. applicability to both Swiss and foreign
citizens).
And we can suspect that a sudden increase in the
proportion of foreign citizens using one of the assistedsuicide services available in Switzerland would not prompt
legislators or voters to change their position greatly, as
60% of patients using Dignitas are German citizens,
which suggests that already large proportion of the
patients who use Swiss assisted suicide services are nonSwiss citizens (and thus that voters had already taken into
account high proportions of non-Swiss citizens using such
services when casting their ballot).
The Swiss government also rejected proposed regulatory
reforms to limit the services to Swiss citizens earlier in
2006, which suggests that widespread support for the
legal use of such services by non-Swiss citizens is not a
short-term trend of public opinion, but a position that has
been the norm for a number of years.
Thus it looks as though this legislation is highly
likely to be in place for the foreseeable future,
and that the likelihood of setting up a dual
assisted-suicide and cryonics facility (or one of
the other alternative operational strategies
mentioned previously) only to then find the
legislative basis for doing so swept out from
under us is rather low. We can safely expect
this legislation to remain, and we can be
confident enough in that conclusion to warrant
forming such a facility in Switzerland.
Cryonics Switzerland


Cryonics
Switzerland
welcomes
your
suggestions, questions and comments, which
can be send to cetandy@gmail.com or
francocortese1@gmail.com.
Please visit CryonicsSwitzerland.com for more
information and ongoing updates.
About the Presenter
Franco Cortese:

International Coordinator: Cryonics Switzerland

Assistant Editor: Ria University Press

Research Scientist: ELPIs Foundation for Indefinite Lifespans

Affiliate Scholar: Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies

Chief Operating Officer: Center for Interdisciplinary Philosophic Studies

Ambassador: The Seasteading Institute,

Fellow & Secretary: Brighter Brains Institute

Futurists Advisory Board Member & Life Extension Advisory Board Member: Lifeboat Foundation,

Columnist: H+ Magazine,

Columnist: Immortality Institute (a.k.a. LongeCity),

Ambassador: Longevity Intelligence Communications,

Activist: The International Longevity Alliance,

Reviewer : Global Futures Intelligence System at The Millennium Project.