patients with these disorders (if stabilized at low temperatures) are in potentially perfect health. To call such people dead is an abuse of language and sense; it is misleading, upsetting, and destructive. When I discuss what future cell repair technologies imply for presentday biostasis, I find no reason to talk about death, except as something to be avoided. Whenever someone speaks to me of somehow returning the dead to life, I say, "What? That's impossible by definition!" I recommend this verbal practice to anyone who would like to see more accurate and and positive language used by the biostasis community. And please complain to editors until they correct their writers! I also endorse Brian's recommendation of the term "ischemic coma" to describe the common condition for which suspension is the only medical option. If biostasis is to become widely accepted, it must be recognized as a conservative medical option. My dictionary defines "conservative" as conserving or tending to conserve; preservative," and as "moderate; prudent; safe." These definitions describe medical conservatism (in the technical rather than the old-fogey sense); they equally well describe biostasis, which is nothing if not safe and preservative. Which is the more conservative therapy for ischemic coma -- one which stabilizes the condition of the patient, or one of the common "therapies" which obliterate the patient's tissues? A maxim of medicine says, "First, do no harm" -which therapy does less harm? In light of this, which is the more moderate and prudent, and hence the more conservative? I believe this conservative stance -- How do we minimize harm to the patient? -- will do more for the acceptance of biostasis than will talk about radical treatments and improbable, cosmic notions of "immortality." Many problems would disappear (and others would arise) if suspension were recognized as a medical procedure and patients in biostasis were recognized as being in a state of (say) "suspended life." In particular, a suspension team could no longer be accused of homicide and a biostasis organization could no longer be accused of illegally storing human remains. On the negative side, patient care in present facilities might be considered unlicensed medical practice -- but to make this accusation would entail admitting that the patients are indeed avoiding death by virtue of their continued suspension. Barring judicial madness, this would seem to preclude any legal action that would terminate ----------------------------------------------------------------------(7)
patient care -- and who else would take responsibility, and with what funds? In any event, one needs no medical license to provide a warm shelter for the homeless; why should one need a medical license to provide a cold shelter for the suspended? More plausibly, the act of placing patients in suspension might be regarded as unlicensed medical practice. Here, the best course might be to use two inconsistent legal theories. First, one would note that the patient was (in accord with current, conservative medical practice) legally dead, and thus the suspension cannot have been a medical procedure. Second, one would note that, despite this legal fiction, the patient is not in fact dead, and this by virtue of the very suspension procedure in question. If the lack of a medical-qualified suspension team stems from the lack of an available physician willing to perform the procedure, then so much the worse for the quality of current medical practice. What persons or entities would have standing to bring charges based on the