It is a landmark 'rebirth' case. A 13-year-old British cancer patient was last month cryogenically frozen. Not wanting to die so soon, she begged the High Court to permit her cryogenic preservation, so that she could wake up again someday.
Called "JS," as her name as well as her family's details are not permitted to be revealed, she was told that her disease was terminal, so her treatments had been stopped. After learning about her cryonic preservation online, she wanted to be put into preservation. For that, she required the signature of both parents.
Hence, her body had to be frozen for future "resuscitation" after the cancer cure was available.
Her choice was supported by her mother only, although the father, who is divorced from the mother, opposed the decision. JS then told Justice Peter Jackson to permit her mother to make decisions about disposal of her body.
The father is also a cancer patient. He did not want to support the decision due to the £ 37,000 involved, as well as the brutality of preserving the body through cryonics. He was not too sure what the future would hold for the child.
"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," he told the High Court. "She may be left in a desperate situation - given that she is still only 14 years old - and will be in the United States of America."
Finally, he gave in, but also requested that he be allowed to see her after she died. Unfortunately, his wish was not granted. The process was too expensive and could not be borne by her parents. So ultimately, the maternal grandparents funded the process.
After her death on Oct 17, JS is preserved now in a cryostat tank about -321F inside the Cryonics Institute, which is an American company offering cryonic suspension and storage for both humans and pets.
JS is one of 10 Britons and the only British child to be put in deep freeze. Publishing the story was permitted only after a month. The entire family's names and other details are to be kept private.
James Bedford, a US psychology professor was the first person whose body was cryogenically frozen due to kidney cancer in 1967. By now, 200 bodies have been put into cryogenic freeze.
Cryonics Institute believes that clinical death is not the "final death, or information theoretic death." That kind of death involves loss of information inside the brain, which makes bringing back the "original person to life" not possible, explains ibtimes.
Would you like to join the immortal club? Then check out Cryonics Institute.
