A HIgh Court judge has allowed a 14-year-old girl who died from cancer to be cryogenically frozen so she could potentially be revived in the future.
The anonymous teenager has been preserved to fulfil her dying wish, a ruling by the judge revealed.
Her father initially objected to the idea, saying in 200 years she may have no relative or “remember things”.
Her mother supported the girl's request but a letter the girl wrote to the judge is thought to have played a key role in the High Court's decision.
Here is what she wrote to Mr Justice Jackson:
“I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done. I’m only 14 years’ old and I don’t want to die, but I know I am going to.
“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 might find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance. This is my wish.”
There is on-going debate surrounding the “far-fetched” belief that a human being can be cryogenically frozen and “reanimated” by future medical advances.
Scientists froze and then thawed out a rabbit brain in perfect condition earlier this year.
“There is ongoing research into these scientific challenges,” said Barry Fuller, professor in surgical science and low temperature medicine at University College London, as quoted by The Guardian.
“A potential future demonstration of the ability to cryopreserve human organs for transplantation would be a major first step into proving the concept, but at the moment we cannot achieve that.”
