CFP: Cryopreservation: Hype or Hope?

Submission deadline: February 1, 2023

Details

The New Bioethics is accepting submissions for an upcoming special issue exploring cryopreservation’s ethical, social, legal, and policy implications.

Cryopreservation – the posthumous storage of persons just after legal death – is an increasingly popular choice for those contemplating their end-of-life options. Unlike cremation or burial, cryonics offers the supposed hope of a post-death revival, and even health renewal, through medical and technological innovations that are yet to be realised. This hope, however, must be tempered by the knowledge that no one who has undergone cryopreservation has been revived. Indeed, given the associated practical uncertainties and principled objections, it is contested whether our attempt to circumvent death through the use of cryopreservation is ethically, socially, and legally justifiable.

The purpose of this special issue is twofold. First, it aims to encourage original articles in this area, exploring the myriad of issues and quandaries that cryopreservation raises and provide guidance about how we may navigate such obstacles appropriately. Second, while some work has been done in this field, this work is dispersed amongst various venues and publication mediums. This special issue will consolidate emerging scholarship in the area into a single publication.

Sample research questions include, but are certainly not limited to:

  • What is the status of the cryopreserved? Are they alive, dead, both, or something different entirely?
  • Do the current uncertainties concerning cryopreservation’s viability make the practice itself unjustifiable?
  • Is the cryopreservation of existing individuals desirable in the face of growing environmental and global-political precarity?
  • Should access to cryopreservation be based solely on financial capacities, or should the resource be distributed according to other factors?
  • What impact could cryopreservation have on other bioethically contentious areas (for example, abortion or euthanasia)?
  • Does the pursuit of cryopreservation reveal something unique about our attitude towards death?
  • Is there a normatively or legally relevant difference between full-body cryopreservation and neuropreservation (the head only)?

Articles will be expected to be between 6,000 and 8,000 words. Submissions are welcome from researchers at all career stages and disciplinary backgrounds.

The deadline is February 1st, 2023.

If you have any questions, please contact the issue’s guest editor, Dr Richard B. Gibson.

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