A brief history of immortality: 80 years of Cryonics Part 3
Bronwyn Rideout - 7th July 2025
Legal and ethical matters of the long, cold nap
While I remain unconvinced by the premise of cryonics, I’ve come away with the impression that most cryonics companies currently in operation have protocols that enable the ethical treatment of family members caught unawares by their loved one’s unorthodox final wishes. In one Alcor case study, staff were reported as telling one family that the condition of their daughter’s body made it hard to justify proceeding with suspension, as the cooling and freezing process would exacerbate the damage to the brain caused by autopsy and transport delays. While this should be a given, I think many skeptics will agree that when it comes to fringe and pseudoscientific enterprises, the bar for decency is all too often on the floor. However, the aftermath of the Chatsworth incident (in which 9 patients thawed out) revealed that such protocols really benefit the companies. It ensures that the majority of their customers are prepared, true believers.
Throughout this newsletter and podcast series, various legal and ethical questions have been broached. On the podcast, we pondered whether cryonauts would have to reimburse life insurance payments upon reanimation. In real life, the ethical and legal questions posed to cryonicists are even stickier. In part 2, I recounted an interaction that Dr Peter Toma and Paul Segall had with a Dunedin civil servant, in which the latter asked if cryonics patients could be considered dead or alive. While Alcor and the Cryonics Institute refer to their residents as patients, their case reports make it very clear that the patients have died (see here and here for examples). The question unexpectedly stumped Toma and Segall at the time, and it remains an important question in New Zealand for two reasons.
Legislation
First, New Zealand does have legislation governing the registration of deaths and the handling and burial of bodies, all of which would be impacted if a cryonics facility were established in New Zealand. These are the Health (Burial) Regulations 1946, the Burial and Cremation Act 1964, and the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021. Within these acts and regulations, burial or cremation is presumed. According to the Funeral Directors Association of NZ, while burial and cremation are the more common choices, burial at sea and donating one’s body to medical science are two other options available in New Zealand. How long a body can be stored depends on whether the person died of a communicable disease. If yes, then the Health (Burial) Regulations 1946 require that the body be sealed in a closed casket and buried/cremated within 48 hours. This regulation would be especially problematic for a cryonicist, as the process leading up to transfer into the dewars or cryostats can take several days; Alcor had at least one case of a patient with HIV in which the transport and suspension phase alone appears to have taken over 24 hours before the multi-day patient cooldown commenced.
If communicable disease is not a concern, there are no hard and fast rules otherwise. I have not come across any funeral homes in NZ advertising long-term residencies in their low-temperature rooms, but a couple do refer to holding bodies for a couple of weeks to accommodate family travelling from overseas. In any case, cryonics would put many of New Zealand’s bureaucrats and legal eagles into a tizzy.
Who can own a body?The second issue is whether a dead body can be property, and who has/can claim responsibility for it. According to the law firm Rainey Collins Lawyers, under New Zealand law there is no property in a dead body. The executor of your will is entitled to custody of your body. While you can express your wishes for burial in your will, they are not binding, and the final decision is up to the executor. While burial disputes are uncommon in New Zealand, they are newsworthy when they occur, especially if one’s family of origin disagrees with what an individual has put in their will.
The rules throughout Australia are similar to New Zealand, but the High Court proceedings of Doodeward v Spence [1908] HCA 45; (1908) 6 CLR 406 (31 July 1908) regarding this matter are unusual, indeed. Between 1864 and 1868, a woman in Dunedin gave birth to an allegedly stillborn two-headed infant, and the attending physician, a Dr. Donahoe/Donahue/Donahoo, retained the infant in a jar of spirits as a curiosity in his clinic rooms. The name, circumstances, and whether the woman even agreed to this arrangement are unknown, although the September 5th, 1879 edition of an Ararat newspaper reported that the doctor was allowed to remove the body. The doctor kept the specimen until his own death in 1870 (or 1879), at which time it was put up for auction with the rest of the Doctor’s estate and, to the scandal of the community, was sold for just £30 - £40 to Abraham Doodeward.
Doodeward had a reputation in Dunedin as a betting man, and intended to exhibit the remains at the local racecourse along with a sea elephant and a two-headed calf. When he sought his license to exhibit, not only did the mayor deny his claim, but the police also wanted to press charges on the grounds of indecency and subversion of public morality. A member of the city council, Mr. Fish, came to Doodeward’s defence. Fish criticised the Mayor for being too sentimental to the objections raised by the child’s family. He further argued that the government failed to voice any objections to sale of the body in the first place; since Abraham paid for his “…‘flesh’, he had the right to exhibit it, notwithstanding the objections of the child’s relatives”, at which point the council declined further legal proceedings against Doodeward.
A few years later, the specimen appeared in Australia. It was reported in Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph that Abraham Doodeward was charged with exposing the public to an indecent exhibition on April 4th, 1884. The exhibition? The two-headed infant. But that wasn’t the issue; it was that it was nude. Abraham claimed that he had exhibited the infant in both Sydney and NZ without any prior trouble. This time, though, he was sentenced to three days in jail, but local authorities and witnesses were unsure whether the specimen was real or made of putty. Abraham was told to put trunks on the specimen during future shows. It remained in the family’s possession until 1906. In 1906, the infant and jar were seized by Sub-Inspector Spence of the Sydney Police during the execution of a search warrant; Reuben Doodeward had earlier tried to access the Sydney Cricket Ground to display the specimen during a school sports carnival.
Marit Leiboff made the connection between Rueben and Abraham in her article first. According to witnesses, Reuben was confident that nothing would come of any legal challenges, due to the minimal imprisonment his father faced back in Bathurst in the 1880s. Regardless, the people of Sydney were not as lenient as the Dunedin City Council, and were appalled that Reuben would charge for such a display. In 1907, Reuben would countersue Spence for damages and return of the specimen, which was kept at the University of Sydney. His case would continue until 1908, when it reached Australia’s high court. The judges argued whether the surgical preparation taken to preserve the infant was the essential point of differentiation between it and the common understanding that there is no property in a dead body. Thus, Doodeward’s claim to the specimen was no different than that of a medical school or museum. It was also argued that the infant was not a corpse because it was allegedly a stillborn, and thus had never been a human being. The judges appeared to have a field day working through all sorts of body snatching scenarios.
Nelson Evening Mail, 12 June 1908, p. 2
By December 1908, the case was eventually decided in Reuben’s favour, indicating that it was possible for a body to acquire property status. It was by dint of luck that the Doodewards were able to come into possession of a prepared specimen; the case might have turned out differently if it had been a different time, and they had acquired the infant before preservation. It’s a strange case that continues to be cited in courtrooms in Australasia, and around the world, over a century later.
Cases citing Doodeward v Spence, as per LawCite.
The enduring curiosity of Doodeward v Spence continues to fascinate lawyers because it presents a threshold between a body being nullius in rebus and subject to property rights; a concept that is of consequence today in cases regarding frozen embryos and gametes, as well as living humans who want to keep their amputated limbs. For cryonicists, the contemplation centres on whether the ‘work and skill’ that allowed Doodeward to preserve his specimen apply to the perfusion and suspension process. Kate Falconer, writing for the University of New South Wales Law Journal, argues that what would have been impressive ‘work and skill’ by 1908 standards is surpassed by modern medicine and science, thereby making it a weak threshold for ownership.
Conversely, Keegan MacIntosh, writing for pro-cryonics website biostasis.com, points out that the US courts recognise quasi-property rights over human remains, but only so far as they provide greater enforceability of the power of the executor, and to the instructions of one’s will. Cryonics companies in the US may draw on specific laws within their respective states to enact lawful possession. For Alcor, this would be Arizona’s Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. As part of their protocols, presumptive patients must sign a document titled Last Will and Testament for Human Remains and Authorization of Anatomical Donation. In it, the patient/donor agrees that cryopreservation is a research project and acknowledges that there are no guarantees of its success. They also declare that they “…understand and intend that this Anatomical Donation gives Alcor full and complete custody and control…” of their human remains, and that they have not received payment in return for this donation. Something that could cause conflict for some whānau/families in New Zealand is the extent of legal power given to Alcor. The same document also empowers Alcor to take full and complete control over human remains by whatever legal means necessary, and to utilise one’s cryopreservation fund to pay for any legal expenses needed to defend Alcor’s authority over the body. I am unsure whether Southern Cryonics in Australia has similar documentation, but they will have their work cut out for them if a patient’s family objects based on tikanga or wider family and community burial customs.
MacIntosh also indicates that this act does have interesting implications for cryonics and the sale of body parts, at least in the state of Arizona:
“Like the model statute, the Arizona UAGA doesn’t explicitly state whether bodies or parts donated under the Act acquire property status. However, it does prohibit the sale or purchase of parts for transplantation or therapy. There are three relevant observations to make from this: (1) the presence of this provision implies that such transactions would be legally possible otherwise, which would require that the part was property capable of being sold; (2) the provision does not apply to parts donated for research and education purposes; and (3) the provision does not apply to whole bodies, as the definition of “parts” expressly excludes this. The relevant federal law similarly applies only to organs for transplantation. Thus, in Arizona it appears that whole bodies or parts donated for research or education purposes may be sold and purchased – implying that the donees have acquired proprietary interests in them.”
MacIntosh’s article poses several interesting legal and ethical questions that cryonics and the law are not yet in a position to answer. If a patient is revived as a whole body, are they still Alcor property? If they are revived as an uploaded entity, what is their entitlement to the property and identity of the original patient? Have I just described the plot of multiple episodes of the show Black Mirror?
Involuntary reanimation
The sale of body parts is a real issue within cryonics and the broader field of medical sciences in the US, and demands even further ethical critique. In NZ, only Otago University and Auckland University accept the donation of bodies for science, under certain criteria. Furthermore, these bodies are specially embalmed to remain viable for a teaching period of at least 18 months, while some parts are retained for longer study and research. In the US, many Universities and teaching hospitals follow the same protocol, but an unregulated, for-profit body-donation industry exists as well. While selling body parts for transplant is illegal, there are no laws governing the sale of body parts or whole cadavers for research or education. Thus, families who may struggle to pay for a funeral may turn to these organisations in the belief that their loved one is helping advance medical science.
However, by engaging with a for-profit company, neither the individual nor their family get a say in where the body goes, or what it is used for. So, what are the ethical quandaries if one of the businesses benefiting from that donation is a cryonics company? Writing for Quartz in 2022, Corinne Purtill profiled Oregon Cryonics (Now Oregon Brain Preservation), a start-up company owned and operated by dentist Jordan Sparks. At the time of Purtill’s piece, Sparks wasn’t offering services to paying clients; instead, he and two assistants were using donated heads from a body donation company called Aeternitas to practice neuropreservation using chemical fixatives and refrigeration, rather than cryopreservation with liquid nitrogen. Sparks’ had plans for expansion at that time, which included a hospital room-type space for patients who wanted to…
“…take advantage of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, which allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients who request them. Sparks envisions future Oregon Cryonics clients choosing to end their life in the facility so that preservation can begin immediately. No human has chosen to die there yet…”
As for the brains, Sparks’ facility did not have the fancy dewars or cryostats of Alcor or the Cryonics Institute. Brains that were anonymously donated for training purposes were kept in grey buckets on the floor, whereas brains specifically bequeathed to him were kept in buckets in the fridge. Again, at the time, Sparks tried to discourage bequests because he knew he was unable to promise these families anything, even more so when the brains were sent to him days or weeks after death. Still, the “patients” were treated differently from the anonymous donations. From Purtill’s article, it appears that the anonymous brains were subjected to tests and assessments that Sparks knew would cause structural damage to the brain. However, what all the brains have in common is that they are not in a cryonics lab by choice, but because someone else sent them there. If technology does allow for their reanimation, Sparks claims they will have the choice to commit suicide, but he believes that the patients will be grateful and want to stay alive.
Chemopreserved brains at Oregon Cryonics/Oregon Brain Preservation
By 2025, Oregon Cryonics had changed its name to Oregon Brain Preservation to reflect its core business of neuropreservation, with a preference for aldehyde over cryogenics. While it does offer limited cryopreservation, its costs are competitive even with the Cryonics Institute, at $15,000 for an entire head and $5,000 for the brain only. Chemical preservation of the brain is even more cost-effective, at $1,000-$5,000 depending on location.
As for the anonymous brains mentioned in the 2022 article, it is unknown what has happened to them. It is likely more ethical to cremate them as if they were any other cadaver that has fulfilled its teaching or research purposes. Unlike the patients at Alcor who have trusts or a community waiting for them when reanimation is possible, the anonymous brains lack that safety net and support. In the unlikely event that one of those brains is actually successfully reanimated, Oregon Brain Preservation may be on the hook for some very expensive aftercare and re-living expenses. Life extension and cryonicists definitely bank on science advancing to the level, where it can reverse the damage caused by chemical or cryo preservation. What no one has been willing to consider is what would happen during the interim stages when initially reanimating people, where technology is unable to repair brain functionality. What is the status of personhood and guardianship for this cohort of the unwillingly disembodied?
Dora Kent’s Head
Surprise preservation is not limited to the poor sods who thought their bodies would go on to medical schools or find a cure for cancer. The nearest and dearest of a cryonicist may also have a space unexpectedly waiting for them in a dewar.
Saul Kent (d. 2023)
Saul Kent was a prominent life extension activist and board member of Alcor, where he was preserved in 2023. Throughout his life he started multiple cryonics charities (including in NZ, see below) and with William Faloon (Founder of the Church of Perpetual Life) started a company that sold dietary supplements and awarded grants to researchers studying life extension. Kent caused a stir in 1987-1988 when he had his mother, Dora Kent, preserved at Alcor. Saul maintained that Dora was interested in being cryopreserved, but was unable to get her affairs in order due to cost and ill health; it is unknown and unclear across edited broadcasts if Dora ever left a will or advanced directive regarding cryopreservation. Whether the issues that would soon beset Alcor could have been bypassed had Saul been able to produce any legal documents stating that this was Dora’s choice is debatable.
A younger Dora Kent
At the point where Dora’s death was imminent, Saul and other members of Alcor decided to transfer Dora from a nearby care home to Alcor’s facility, so that they could care for her until she died and consequently ensure optimal neuropreservation. While she was dying of Alzheimer’s disease and pneumonia, she also suffered from a host of age-related physical maladies. Saul thought that when Dora was reanimated, it would make more sense to give her a new body.
Dora soon died on-site, and her suspension began immediately. However, there was no attending physician present at the moment of death to declare that Dora had died. While her usual physician eventually signed off on her death certificate that she had died of pneumonia, the local coroner had gotten wind of the unusual circumstances and requested an autopsy of the body. The coroner found evidence of barbiturates in Kent’s body, which are commonly administered during the suspension process, and ruled the death a homicide. The coroner also wanted Kent’s head, and any other bodies Alcor housed, for further investigation.
What ensued was a prolonged legal battle that included a raid on the facilities, and Dora’s head being hidden in a freezer at an undisclosed location. That Alcor is still in operation and not relegated to the realms of infamy should be a strong indicator that they definitely won their legal case.
Saul was interviewed by Errol Morris for the television series First Person, and discussed the controversy.
Trying to get an unfrozen foot into New Zealand.
Within a decade of nearly missing financial ruin and criminal charges regarding the death of his mother, Saul set his sights on New Zealand. Along with William Faloon, the two attempted to establish The Foundation for the Reversal of Solid State Hypothermia (FRSSH). They had been preceded in 1999 by The Foundation for Anti-Aging Research (FAAR).
FAAR was incorporated under the Charitable Trusts Act in 1999 to establish a non-profit hospital for the treatment of aging, funding of projects addressing degenerative diseases, and acceptance of anatomical specimens for research aimed at reversing disease, senescence, traumatic injury, and death. Cam Christie, who would become the first man to be cryopreserved, served on FAAR’s initial oversight committee, according to Faloon. The two main trustees were Derek Russell Smith, an accountant based in Monaco, and Mt. Wesley Trustees Limited, an incorporated company with its office in Belize. The deed trust document appears to have been copied from an American source, as many clauses refer to the codes of the Internal Revenue Service.
FRSSH came much later, in 2011, and was intended to fund research in genetic engineering, cloning, and other related fields that would benefit both living and cryopreserved individuals. Both groups listed 60 Tinakori Road as their address, which BusinessDesk reported was attached to lawyer Gordon Stewart.
Both groups applied for registration as a charitable entity under the Charities Act 2005 and both were rejected. The rejection was mainly based on the objectives listed by FAAR and FRSSH.) was rejected because the registration board thought they were practically identical. The board stated that cryopreservation lacked credibility and was too speculative for the charities to have genuine educative purposes. Further, there was no New Zealand authority on the matter of cryonics. Arguments regarding the “relief of the aged” were also rejected because cryonics clients were dead whereas being ‘aged’ implies being alive. The exorbitant cost of cryopreservation also led the board to conclude that the services would be essentially private.
FAAR and FRSSH appealed the decision on the argument that advancing education and sharing their research on cryonics was a charitable endeavour. They won the appeal because the court agreed, controversial or otherwise, that there was a public benefit. The decision of FAAR and FRSSH continues to impact NZ charity law as it pertains to what qualifies as a charitable activity and appeals when registration is declined.
Both groups were registered in 2016, but neither survived to reach their 10th anniversary. They were eventually deregistered in 2020 (FRSSH) and 2024 (FAAR). Despite its cryonics celebrity cachet, FRSSH didn’t really have much in the way of funds, whereas FAAR did hold and move large amounts of cash. BusinessDesk reported that FAAR made its income from investments, and in one year administered $1.1 million in grants and donations. Derek Russell Smith appears to be the person connecting both organisations, as he served as a trustee for both. Substantial details about his interest in cryonics are lacking, but the following note is made in FAAR’s financial performance report:
“Donations were to be made on the 4th of April 2024 to the Statis [sic] Foundation of $1,678,100. Due to a clerical error from ANZ Limited, these funds were released on the 28th of March 2024. The funds were held in a segregated Status Endowment account per mutual agreement between the Trustees of both Foundation for Anti Aging Research and Stasis Foundation; these funds were not disbursed for charitable research activities until the 4th of April 2024”
In my opinion, the Stasis Foundation named above is likely the same Stasis Foundation, an American non-profit, that purchased 645 acres in Texas for the purposes of building a cryonics facility called Timeship.
Timeship was envisioned as a haven for cryonics research and dewars, with the capacity to hold 50,000 patients. The project was the creation of Faloon and Kent, with the later approaching architect Stephen Valentine in 1997 to design the building. Development was slated to start on the Texas property in 2016. However, there has been no progress on the building since then. IRS filings for Stasis Foundation and the Stasis Foundation Charitable Trust still reference the Texas property as late as 2022, but the original architect reported that the Timeship project is now based in New York.
The Stasis Foundation, on the other hand, has been busy. In 2014, they bought the famous mid-century underground bunker capsule house in Las Vegas under the pseudonym Society for the Preservation of Near Extinct Species. If you spend any time on the internet, you would have come upon this property at least once.
Fun fact: The mural seen in the background of the second image depicts various locations important to the original owner. One of the landscapes depicted is the Cecil Peak Station sheep ranch in New Zealand, which he bought in 1979; it sold three years after his death in 1986. Henderson’s property at the station did not have an underground house - New Zealand law at the time prohibited foreigners from owning a permanent home; instead, his house was built on skids and not attached to pillars.
The Stasis Foundation attempted to sell the property twice, in 2019 and 2024, before deciding to turn the house into a public attraction. As for the mansion and land they owned in Texas, they may have attempted to pivot operations by suppressing their cryonics operations and promoting their organ donation advocacy instead. While their website is not up-to-date, the social media pages of various transplant charities have been publicly thanking the Stasis Foundation for their support as recently as 2024.
Like so many unknowns in cryonics, I have yet to find any additional information about any deeper financial or administrative connections between FAAR and the Stasis Foundation. Nevertheless, the original 2012 registration documents in the Charities Register clearly state that FAAR’s activities were intended to be limited to supporting scientific research in Europe and North America, with no benefit to New Zealand.
If you’re a cryonicist in the know and wish to correct me on any errors or misconceptions seen here, I’d love to put together a part four - and maybe have you on the podcast!
Final Thoughts… for now
While New Zealand is unlikely to have its own cryonics facility in the immediate future, the proximity of Southern Cryonics in NSW improves physical access even if it doesn’t exactly lower costs. There remain a myriad of legal and ethical issues to address, or revisit in the case of Doodeward v Spence, and the presence of a cryonics facility in the southern hemisphere may demand New Zealanders face those questions sooner than anticipated.