This is an interesting case about a teenager - a girl, all of 14 yrs who wanted her body to be cryogenically preserved in the hope she could live longer after cancer cure - who'd won a landmark legal battle, shortly before she died.
(a) The 14 year old's divorced parents had got embroiled in a dispute about whether her remains
should be taken to a scientific facility in the US and cryogenically preserved.
(b) The girl, who lived in London with her mother and had a rare form of cancer, had asked for the
fulfillment of this wish of her's to Justice Peter Jackson at the Family Division of the High
Court.
(c) The judge had given the following directives while dealing with the case and the child was too
ill to attend the hearings:-
(i) nothing about the case would be reported while she was alive as the 'media coverage'
would distress her.
(ii) no one involved should be identified, in line with the girl's wishes.
(d) The following, also, need to be borne in mind:-
(i) Cryopreservation is the preservation of cells by freezing which is a well known process.
(ii) Cryonics is cryopreservation taken to its extreme.
(iii) Scientific theory underlying 'Cryonics' is controversial and it has an 'ethical angle'!
The court has approved of the girl's wishes and accordingly, her body will be frozen in perpetuity, at an American scientific facility @ 37,000 Pounds.
Tailpiece.
I think I can understand her father's initial misgivings about, "Even if the treatment is successful and she's brought back to life, 200 years from now, she might not find any relative and she might not remember things. She may be left in a desperate situation given that she's only 14 yrs old and will be in the US!" He'd, however, come around to accept the verdict in the end.
(a) The 14 year old's divorced parents had got embroiled in a dispute about whether her remains
should be taken to a scientific facility in the US and cryogenically preserved.
(b) The girl, who lived in London with her mother and had a rare form of cancer, had asked for the
fulfillment of this wish of her's to Justice Peter Jackson at the Family Division of the High
Court.
(c) The judge had given the following directives while dealing with the case and the child was too
ill to attend the hearings:-
(i) nothing about the case would be reported while she was alive as the 'media coverage'
would distress her.
(ii) no one involved should be identified, in line with the girl's wishes.
(d) The following, also, need to be borne in mind:-
(i) Cryopreservation is the preservation of cells by freezing which is a well known process.
(ii) Cryonics is cryopreservation taken to its extreme.
(iii) Scientific theory underlying 'Cryonics' is controversial and it has an 'ethical angle'!
The court has approved of the girl's wishes and accordingly, her body will be frozen in perpetuity, at an American scientific facility @ 37,000 Pounds.
Tailpiece.
I think I can understand her father's initial misgivings about, "Even if the treatment is successful and she's brought back to life, 200 years from now, she might not find any relative and she might not remember things. She may be left in a desperate situation given that she's only 14 yrs old and will be in the US!" He'd, however, come around to accept the verdict in the end.
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