Frozen Stiffs

The practice of preserving the dear departed by deepfreeze is causing a number of unanticipated political, legal and moral problems. Originally considered a boon to mankind, the process was developed to give medical science time to find cures for the various debilitating and often terminal diseases that currently afflict mankind. It is expected that in another 10 to 100 years it will be possible to defrost the subjects and perform the necessary therapy that will restore them to a long, perhaps indefinite life.

When the process, known familiarly as cryogenic interment, was introduced so enthusiastically only six years ago, there was not even a hint of the resulting problems that now plague us. Originally, the cost of cryogenic interment was approximately $10,000 and it was not expected that anyone but the most wealthy would be able to take advantage of the potential benefits of this form of temporary death.

However, due to the enterprise of two men, mortician Fred Smythe of New York City and Herbert Rubinfield, a refrigeration repairman of the Landsdale Quick Freeze Food Company, a family deepfreeze kit has been developed and has been placed on the market at a price most middle-income families can afford.

The first evidence that the mass expectation of a future life right here on earth was not an unmixed blessing was the recent announcement by the Queens County Eye Bank that there had not been a single cornea bequeathed to it in the past three years. Similar reports have begun to filter in from eye banks, kidney banks and other depositories of organ transplants throughout the nation. It has become evident that the nation's dying plan to be defrosted in the future with all their faculties intact.

The next problem to be felt was that many of the nation's private colleges, research foundations and charitable and religious institutions are running into unprecedented financial difficulties. The reason for this, according to a recent study, is an almost complete halt in bequests in the wills of would-be donors. Uncertain of their financial resources in the world to which they expect to awaken, former philanthropists are electing to take their assets along to the cooler with them. Another ramification of this trend was brought even more startlingly to public attention when Arbuckle H. Pontiac III, son of the multimillionaire toy manufacturer who died following a lingering illness a year ago, applied for welfare payments from the state of Michigan. He explained that his father had liquefied all the family interests and had hidden the cash, pending his future awakening. Frustrated after a yearlong, unsuccessful search, and never having learned a trade, young Pontiac has become a public charge.

Probate courts now report that the common practice of the dying wealthy whose family devotion is somewhat stronger than the elder Pontiac's is to provide that their heirs receive only the income from trusts, with the principal to be returned to them when they resume their own active lives.

To the consternation of welfare authorities, a growing number of less-affluent decedents have taken all their assets with them, leaving their widows and orphans destitute.

The Federal Reserve Board and the President's Council of Economic Advisors have asked that, in the spirit of patriotism, temporary decedents utilize the trust system rather than the asset-hoarding technique of providing for their future. In the meantime, Federal legislation to require this method is being prepared. Included in the legislative package is a bill forbidding banks to accept prepayment on safe-deposit-box rentals for a period any greater than five years. Some of the more progressive states are in the process of modernizing their penal codes to meet with the new relife expectancy of condemned prisoners. Alabama, for example, now allows that prisoners sentenced to death for the lessserious categories of capital crimes may, upon recommendation for mercy by the jury, have their sentences commuted to temporary death. Cost of the cryogenic interment would be placed upon the families of the condemned.

New York State, recognizing the new technology, has eliminated the term "murder" from its criminal code, changing the charge to assault with intent to kill. The penalty has been set at 150 years in the cooler.

As the knowledge of the frozen immortality has reached the masses in greater degree, a number of distinct trends have been noted. There have been more heroes on the battlefields and there has been a marked increase in reckless driving by timid husbands. Medical doctors have become considerably more daring in their experiments with human patients and malpractice suits now automatically include the costs of freezing their mistakes for solution by tomorrow's more knowledgeable and experienced experts.

Meanwhile, the cryogenic industry has not been without problems of its own. Smythe and Rubinfield's original company, Frigidead, was forced to sell out to General Mortuaries Corporation, following a cutthroat, sealing-and-dealing price war. It ended with delivery at only $3000. G. M. had the added advantage of its financially unlimited lending subsidiary, General Mortuaries Corpse Acceptances (G. M. C. A.). Thousands of units have been sold with the attractive slogan "Die now, pay later!"

Financing contracts stipulate that if the purchaser of the kit should die before it is fully paid for, his family must be (concluded on page 197) Frozen Stiffs (continued from page 135) responsible for the remainder of the payments. However, there are court cases still unresolved in which the heirs were unable to meet the deadly carrying charges and G. M. C. A. is attempting to repossess and dispossess. A consumer research project has been undertaken to measure the strength of the used-coffin market.

Deepfreeze kits have been cited by both sides in the dispute over public ownership of the nation's electric power resources. Proponents of public ownership were encouraged by the infamous case of Gundar Priblege, who was defrosted when Eclectic Electric shut off his family's electricity for failure to pay their bill. The heat generated by the incident resulted in a New York law requiring utility companies to obtain court orders before shutting off power. One of the tests of eligibility is the presence of a cryobody in the building.

Opponents of public ownership maintain that the assurance of free juice will deter people from setting aside trust funds to provide for their own suspended animation, that they will approach death without sufficient preparation for their future.

An Eclectic Electric spokesman asserted that the future life of our dear departed is too important to be entrusted to political hacks who would operate utilities under public ownership. He cited the possibility of massive power failures and individual power cutoffs due to errors that could occur if electricity were taken from the hands of private ownership.

Theologians are studying some of the problems resulting from cryogenic interment. Many clergymen, reluctant to oppose the wishes of their parishioners, have ceased calling for the deliverance of souls, at least for the time being. The dear departing prefer a spiritual handsoff policy, so that their souls remain with their remains.

Although clergymen generally have balked, civil marriage contracts are being changed from "until death do us part" to "until death and/or deepfreeze do us part." A committee of the National Bar Association is expected to come up with a recommendation on whether a surviving spouse is legally a widow or widower. Several prominent lawyers insist that divorce proceedings be required before the survivor can be free to remarry.

Export of the do-it-yourself deepfreeze kits has been banned upon the advice of the National Security Council, pending a more accurate determination by the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency as to who, if any, are America's friends abroad. However, General de Gaulle hinted at a recent news conference that France will soon announce that she has discovered the technique through her own efforts. France's version will be of a more expensive nature, but it will allow wealthy Frenchmen to take their wives or other companions along on a voluntary basis.

Overpopulated China and India have prohibited the reporting of the process to their public. Mao cogently pointed out that the coming nuclear war will make the entire argument academic, since even the deepfreeze will not be able to cool off atomized bodies.

While the cost of cryogenic interment has been brought within the reach of the average American family, the substandard family is still left to die in the archaic, dusty but permanent manner. Welfare, civil rights and other socially conscious groups are beginning to militate for Government-subsidized deepfreeze kits. Newly elected President Hubert Humphrey has ordered his top legislative lieutenant, Senator Everett Dirksen, to introduce legislation calling for the financing of relative immortality through the Social Security System. The Deadicare Bill will be brought up in committee within a few weeks. The American Morticians Association opposes the proposal as cradle-to-grave socialism, and a life-or-death struggle is expected in the chamber.