Pennsylvania's Statement of Contrary Intent - and the Rest of Your Cryonics Paperwork
When people imagine what could go wrong with cryonics, they picture the science failing. In practice, the more common failure mode is far more mundane: a grieving relative who objects, hesitates, or simply does not know what you wanted - and the law hands them the decision.
If you live in Pennsylvania and you intend to be cryopreserved, the single most important thing you can do is make sure your own wishes legally outrank your next of kin. That is what a Statement of Contrary Intent does.
Why next of kin are the real risk
Pennsylvania law (generally 20 Pa.C.S. § 305) sets a default hierarchy for who controls the disposition of a person's remains - typically a spouse, then adult children, then parents, and so on. Unless you have left clear, written instructions to the contrary, that hierarchy decides what happens to your body. A cryonics organization cannot simply act on a membership card if your legal next of kin shows up and says no.
That is the problem. You can sign up with a cryonics provider, fund it, and still have the entire arrangement defeated at the moment it matters most, because the person with legal authority over your remains never agreed to it.
What a Statement of Contrary Intent does
A Statement of Contrary Intent is a signed, written document in which you expressly state your own wishes for the disposition of your body - cryopreservation through your chosen organization - and, ideally, name the person or organization you authorize to carry them out. It is the mechanism the law provides for overriding the default next-of-kin hierarchy with your own clearly expressed intent.
Done correctly, it tells everyone - your family, the funeral home, the coroner, the hospital - that the decision has already been made, by you, in writing, in advance.
Here is an example of the kind of Pennsylvania disposition-authorization form involved, provided for reference:
View the example PA form (PDF)
(Example form courtesy of cremstar.com, hosted here for convenience.)
The Statement is only one piece
Here is what nobody tells you when you first look into cryonics: the Statement of Contrary Intent is just one document in a stack. To actually have your wishes carried out smoothly, you are realistically looking at several pieces of paperwork working together:
- Cryonics membership and preservation agreement. Your contract with the Cryonics Institute (or Alcor) - the organization that will actually perform and maintain the preservation.
- Funding. Preservation is almost always funded with a life insurance policy that names the cryonics organization as the beneficiary. This is the standard, affordable way to fund it without paying a large lump sum up front.
- The Statement of Contrary Intent. The Pennsylvania-specific document above, so your next of kin cannot override the plan.
- A last will and testament. So your estate and final wishes are clearly documented.
- Re-titling assets to avoid probate. Things like your vehicle title - moving it to a transfer-on-death or joint title so the car (and other titled assets) pass directly instead of getting tied up in probate court.
What it actually costs
Even if you do all of this yourself, without hiring an attorney, you should budget around $500 in real costs - notary fees, filing and recording fees, and the setup of the funding policy. It is not free, but it is far cheaper than the alternative of having the whole arrangement fail because one document was missing.
The takeaway
Cryonics is a bet on the future, but the paperwork is a bet you control completely today. In Pennsylvania, the Statement of Contrary Intent is the keystone: it is the document that keeps the decision yours. Pair it with funded membership, a will, and clean asset titling, and you have removed the most common, most preventable way for a cryonics plan to fall apart.