Alcor Member Profile: Rebecca Lively
Alcor Member Profile
From Cryonics 4th Quarter 2009
By Chana Phaedra
With the issue of family interference in an individual’s cryopreservation arrangements rearing its ugly head in multiple cases this past year, it is always good to meet the growing number of cryonicist couples and families out there.
Rebecca Lively was introduced to cryonics by way of her husband when they first started dating — he showed her his necklace and asked her if she knew what it meant. Seeing the engraved medical information, she figured he must have had an allergy or illness of which she should be aware. Instead, he explained cryonics to her “in what seemed like one long breath.”
Following this, he offered to answer any questions she might have. He thought she might feel confused, worried, or uncomfortable about his cryonics arrangements, as had women he had dated in the past. But it made sense to Rebecca, and she told him so.
Rebecca Lively, intellectual property lawyer and Alcor member, works and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
“Two hundred years ago, people would have thought that it was mutilation to open up a person’s chest and cut into their heart while they were still alive,” she considered. “Today, open heart surgery is performed across the world on a regular basis. Surely further advances will be made in the future. Perhaps those advances will be remarkable enough to restore a person to life if they have been properly preserved. How could this be a bad idea?”
This type of reasoning most certainly set Rebecca apart from other women. And though she never explicitly said so, it’s probably safe to say that this event solidified their relationship in a way that only a cryonicist who has met another cryonicist understands.
But, being the self-analytical type, Rebecca wanted to be sure she wasn’t signing up for the wrong reasons. So she researched the topic at Alcor’s website and by reading anti-cryonics information in order to reach an unbiased opinion. She waited to sign up until she knew that she wanted it for herself, finally deciding to join after she had finished with law school and gotten a job.
Rebecca on her wedding day. Cryonics is a family affair! Rebecca’s husband introduced her to cryonics while they were dating. Now Rebecca and her son are members as well.
Being a lawyer, one of the things Rebecca was most interested in was making sure that Alcor wasn’t a scam. After talking about it with her husband, a research scientist who studies aging, and going over the details regarding funding, she reached the conclusion that it was a legitimate, life-saving endeavor and began tackling the membership application in 2008.
“It took me awhile to sign up because I wanted to read all of the paperwork and there was quite a bit,” she admits. But Rebecca also points out that such paperwork is necessary for legal protection of both Alcor and the member and that “there’s really no choice but to keep it that long.”
In fact, all that paperwork still isn’t enough to protect a member under all circumstances. Rebecca began thinking harder about this issue while following the recent Mary Robbins case. “This woman had gone through the same pile of paperwork and even hired a lawyer to look it over and to look over her will, and yet she was somehow talked out of her cryonics arrangements at the end of her life,” Rebecca laments. “She was put on ice in a nursing home for a long period, suffering ischemic damage. And all seemingly over money! It was very disturbing.”
So Rebecca started brainstorming ways to prevent such scenarios. Making use of her background, she came up with several legal ideas, such as: disallowing those you know to be in disagreement with your cryonics arrangements as guardians; including a “no contest” clause in your will, such that those who interfere are disinherited; and changing the contingent beneficiary on your life insurance policy from a person you know to someone who doesn’t know you — or even know that you exist. “Make it a completely unrelated to life extension charity,” Rebecca suggests. “Not a family member, not Alcor — don’t tempt anyone to do anything to prevent your preservation.”
The sad fact is, people who don’t understand your cryopreservation arrangements are not going to feel bad about preventing your cryopreservation. Rebecca feels that the most challenging aspect of cryonics is the socio-political climate of our time. “It is human nature to reject what they do not understand or what is different,” she observes. “One of the biggest risks to cryonicists is other people.”
Though her husband and nine year-old son are both cryonicists, Rebecca says that, in general, her experiences in telling others about her arrangements have not been overly positive. “Most people just think I’m crazy without giving any specific reasons why,” she says. A co-worker she asked to witness her Alcor paperwork flipped through it and was incredulous at the thought, but couldn’t pinpoint why. “Ultimately, he said he would do it, but that he would really rather not,” Rebecca recalls.
“I think it’s all just a psychological mechanism to cope with death,” Rebecca theorizes. Because of this, she feels that one of the worst things cryonicists can do is to present themselves as loud and proud atheists. In order to grow and become more mainstream, cryonics must appeal to and accept people of all walks of life, especially if their background or faith makes them more susceptible to unquestioning acceptance of death.
Outside of her husband and son, Rebecca describes her friends and family as indifferent to her arrangements. “They mostly think that it is just something that is different about me,” she explains. “I do not let cryonics define me. So, whether or not my friends and extended family agree with my choice to be cryopreserved, they still value me as an individual and friend.”
Still, it’s nice to know that other people see things your way, and Rebecca was happily introduced to many young cryonicists recently at the Teens and Twenties cryonics conference sponsored by Life Extension Foundation in January 2010. Prior to that, she had also met several individual cryonicists through her husband and by attending the yearly regional CryoFeast held in Austin, Texas, a couple of times.
Having lived in both Cleveland, OH, and San Diego, CA, as a child, Rebecca is happy to have called San Antonio, TX, “home” since the age of 12, where she graduated from high school and entered college at the age of 16. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems before deciding (after a long talk with Mom) that she was more interested in law. Once settled upon that conclusion, Rebecca applied to St. Mary’s Law School and later received a law degree at the age of 23.
Rebecca’s legal, political, and social interests involve patent and copyright law reform, personal jurisdiction and defamation on the internet, gay rights, and freedom from regulation of morality in general. Her cryonics-related interests include far-future retirement planning and “finding a way to never need cryonics at all.” As a backup plan, she hopes to contribute to cryonics in the best way she knows how — and right now that is using her legal background to ensure that access to cryonics and preservation of patients is not impaired by operation of law or public pressure.
Like most cryonicists, Rebecca longs for more general acceptance and wants cryonics organizations to beef up their public relations campaigns. “I hope that Alcor works to improve the public image of cryonics by highlighting its benefits to as many people as possible without regard to religious or political affiliation, thus helping cryonics to achieve a more mainstream status.”
For fun, Rebecca likes to spend time with her son, doing things “including but not limited to jumping on the trampoline, digging in the dirt for bugs, looking at ‘lol cats’ on the internet, hiking, swimming, and teaching him about anything and everything that can hold his attention for more than 3 minutes.” She also loves traveling, board games, intelligent discussion with interesting people, scuba diving, and eating chocolate.
Rebecca feels strongly about advance preparation of legal documents to protect cryonics members at the time of cryopreservation. See her article How to Protect Your Cryonics Arrangements from Interference by Third Parties.