Cryonics is the practice of freezing seemingly dead people in the hope that future technology might wake them up.
What if a criminal sentenced to death asks to be cryogenically preserved?
What if a criminal sentenced to life-in-prison asks to be cryogenically preserved should he die in prison? What if they are sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences?
Should these requests be granted? Is denying it to the life-in-prison felon an effective death sentence?
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“What if a criminal sentenced to death asks to be cryogenically preserved?”
In these case, I think that will be against the “spirit” of death penalty authorize that
“What if a criminal sentenced to life-in-prison asks to be cryogenically preserved should he die in prison? What if they are sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences?”
In these case there is an aditional problem: life-in-prison has different names in differents circunscriprions (sp?): “perpetual prision”, “prision for life”, “prison until the end of natural life”, “prision for [some number bigger than 100] years”, etc. and these (apparently, irrelevant) differences can be very relevant in a case like that, specially for the question “if you preserve the body and, some years after, ressuscite him, what to do with him?” (btw, there already was a case of a prisioner sentenced to “prison until the end of natural life” who requested release after receiving a heart transplant, or something like that).
In the case of “perpetual prision” is easy, the ressucited body should remain in prision; in the other cases, it is more complex (for example, in a prisioner senteced to 300 years of prision, the years when he was frozen should count?)
However, attending that (I think) people are frozen before death, this simplify much: because he never died, he is still in his life, than should remain in prision.
“”"However, attending that (I think) people are frozen before death, this simplify much: because he never died, he is still in his life, than should remain in prision.”"”
People are legally dead when they are frozen (and I believe must be legally dead before freezing). It’s cryonics advocates who argue that they aren’t truly dead (and calling them dead is a nice social fiction that saves on health-care costs).
BTW, I tried to find the heart transplant story (it’s brilliant), but I couldn’t.
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