It seems a workaround would be to keep around a frozen embryo. Since frozen embryos are viable with current technology, they probably have to qualify as not dead.
It looks like reading “Gametes, Embryos and the Life in Being: The Impact of Reproductive Technology on the Rule Against Perpetuities” would be helpful, but I can’t find a non-paywalled version.
Not all states still have the standard Rule Against Perpetuities, so it would be good to check the state you’re in.
Dad Was Born A Thousand Years Ago? has an interesting discussion of what should happen to a bequest “to all my children” given that this is no longer a class closed upon death. (And generally classes have to be logically guaranteed to be closed to be valid for wills.)
Ok, found it. The article considers both the possibility that an embryo counts as a “life in being” and that it does not, so it’s not legally settled. They basically end up saying that for legal consistency you can hold the embryo to count or not, and both give bad policy outcomes. So they propose dropping the whole “21 years after the death...” and just using a fixed length of time. They also argue that this fixed length shouldn’t be too long, because the point of the rule is to limit the control of previous generations over the use of current resources.
More looking into the legal status of frozen embryos turns up:
We conclude that preembryos are not, strictly speaking, either “persons” or “property,” but occupy an interim category that entitles them to special respect because of their potential for human life. -- Davis v. Davis, 842 SW 2d 588 - Tenn: Supreme Court 1992
I wonder if the same argument would apply to preserved adults, if the technology advanced from the current state of “almost certainly information theoretically dead” to one with “potential for human life”?
It looks like reading “Gametes, Embryos and the Life in Being: The Impact of Reproductive Technology on the Rule Against Perpetuities” would be helpful, but I can’t find a non-paywalled version.
Not all states still have the standard Rule Against Perpetuities, so it would be good to check the state you’re in.
Dad Was Born A Thousand Years Ago? has an interesting discussion of what should happen to a bequest “to all my children” given that this is no longer a class closed upon death. (And generally classes have to be logically guaranteed to be closed to be valid for wills.)
Ok, found it. The article considers both the possibility that an embryo counts as a “life in being” and that it does not, so it’s not legally settled. They basically end up saying that for legal consistency you can hold the embryo to count or not, and both give bad policy outcomes. So they propose dropping the whole “21 years after the death...” and just using a fixed length of time. They also argue that this fixed length shouldn’t be too long, because the point of the rule is to limit the control of previous generations over the use of current resources.
More looking into the legal status of frozen embryos turns up:
I wonder if the same argument would apply to preserved adults, if the technology advanced from the current state of “almost certainly information theoretically dead” to one with “potential for human life”?