Having used the last months of her life investigating the procedure, a 14-year old from the UK has won the rights to cryogenically freeze her body after she fell terminally ill to cancer. The young girl hoped she may be resuscitated some time in the distant future, when a cure for cancer is available.
The teen who has been put under name suppression due to her age, but referred to as "JS" in internal reports, pleaded to High Court Justice Peter Jackson only days before her death on October 17th, to allow her mother to decide what happens to her body after death. Her letter to judge Peter Jackson read:
"I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done. I am only 14 years old, and I don"t want to die but I know I am going to die. I think being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up - even in hundreds of years" time. I don"t want to be buried underground. I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance. This is my wish."
The teenager"s parents were divorced, and the girl had not had any contact with her father for over six years before she became ill. While her mother supported her daughter"s decision to cryogenically preserve her body, her father did not. In a statement to the BBC, the girl"s father penned his argument that if she was awoken in the future, she may find herself alone and in a state of disarray.
"Even if the treatment is successful and she is brought back to life in let"s say 200 years, she may not find any relative and she might not remember things and she may be left in a desperate situation given that she is only 14 years old and will be in the United States of America."
Despite the father eventually changing his mind, in favor of his daughter"s choice to preserve her body, he wanted the opportunity to see his daughter"s body after her death, something she would not allow.
This landmark case has arisen serious concerns in the United Kingdom about the regulation of cryogenic freezing, especially because it is not regulated by Britain"s Human Tissue Authority - a government agency created by an act of the same name in 2004.
The basis of this case has had many people considering the ethical paradigms, and whether or not cryogenic freezing actually has scientific grounds, or if it simply offers false hope at a high price.
