Traditional Motto of
"Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro Uno" (Latin)
"One
for all, all for one"
The International
Coordinator of Cryonics
Franco Cortese <http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/bio/cortese/>.
The Swiss Hospice Option
Charles Tandy, Ph.D.
If you are
terminally ill and in Switzerland, whether you are a citizen of Switzerland or not, you are
legally permitted to end your own life.Such an event
of choice can be arranged with one of the Swiss organizations already actively
providing such hospice space and assistance, including pronouncement of legal
death. In conjunction with the above facts, I suggest that one consider the
following possibility as an additional option for inclusion in one's cryonics
contract: At the point of legal death, a cryonic-hibernation team would
immediately in Switzerland begin the cryonics procedure under optimal
conditions as distinguished from the sometimes expensive or unpredictable or suboptimal
conditions associated with cryonics stand-by.
How Much Would It Cost?
For an American, how much would the
Swiss Hospice Option cost? Here are the numbers (rough estimates) in round
figures (United States Dollars):
(A.) Basic Cryonics Institute <www.cryonics.org> cryonics coverage,
including long-term storage: $30,000.
(B.) Cryonics Institute shipment of body
from
(C.) Swiss hospice space and assistance to
legally end one’s own life, including legal pronouncement of death – via Dignitas of Switzerland <www.dignitas.ch>: $13,000.
(D.) Cryonic-hibernation team and services
in
> This adds up to: $88,000.
Additional Comments
How doable is this? Consider the
following:
(A.) and (B.) have already been available
for years from the Cryonics Institute.
(C.) has already been available for years
from Dignitas of
Switzerland. ("Please note that DIGNITAS is
unable to arrange an accompanied suicide for healthy people or people with a
mental illness or psychological problems; the Swiss legal and medical situation
is not yet sufficiently positive on this.")
(D.) has not previously been available to
my knowledge, but I believe it is imminently doable: The $30,000 figure used
here is my own estimate, not that of the Cryonics Institute or Dignitas.
You may want to have this option in
place for you and your loved ones in order to cover the possibility that a
terminal illness may strike. It is best to put the option in your contract,
along with OTHER options, while you are still in good health and before you are
terminally ill! Thus, if indeed you DO subsequently become terminally ill, the
Swiss Hospice Option may save you and your loved ones from financial crisis,
physical pain, mental distress, and perplexing choices. (Also one may think
about medical costs/medical insurance and about death costs/life insurance as
parts of the total picture that you or your insurance should take into
consideration.) The Swiss Hospice Option makes sense to me.
With this in mind, perhaps
we should also attempt to locate cryonicists in
This website is sponsored by
Dr. Charles Tandy
[