Terminally ill British girl wins right to freeze her body

The flying mouse

A 14-year old girl who died of cancer has been cryogenically frozen in the hope she could be brought back to life in the future after winning a landmark court case shortly before her death, the BBC reported on Friday.

It said the girl was supported in her wish to be preserved by her mother but not by her father.

Cryonics is the practice or technique of deep-freezing the bodies of those who have died of an incurable disease, in the hope of a future cure.

https://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwid0cv68bLQAhWFWxoKHTKNBRkQqUMIJzAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-britain-science-girl-idUSKBN13D0QI&usg=AFQjCNFRE9iqCm70iAn5jNlaf_GH65c9rg

I don't see any downsides to this ? Wouldn't it be great to come back and have a look around , what you think AH ? would you do it ?

Spanish Eyes

If the girl's executors and family can afford it, why not?

KungPao

Cryonics. May as well just throw your money on the fire.

diomed

I blame Disney

ScumLord

The flying mouse wrote: »

I don't see any downsides to this ?

Brain damage would be the obvious one. It's unknown if they'll actually be able to reboot the human brain and return the person as they were.

I don't know if the brain is simply a piece of hardware that will carry on where it left off, there could be something to the way the electrical current is held and letting that electric current dissipate may mean that the hardware can still handle the processes but they're random and uncoordinated.


I suppose it's worth a shot, you'll either remain dead or get another shot. I don't understand how they're going to cover their costs. Do you get a hundred years and then get dumped?

arayess

ScumLord wrote: »

Brain damage would be the obvious one. It's unknown if they'll actually be able to reboot the human brain and return the person as they were.

I don't know if the brain is simply a piece of hardware that will carry on where it left off, there could be something to the way the electrical current is held and letting that electric current dissipate may mean that the hardware can still handle the processes but they're random and uncoordinated.


I suppose it's worth a shot, you'll either remain dead or get another shot. I don't understand how they're going to cover their costs. Do you get a hundred years and then get dumped?

I agree also they can't prove the person doesn't have some consciousness.
It would incredibly boring being frozen and awake for that length of time.

not for me ..

Outlaw Pete

When she is brought back to life in say 2029, her ID will obviously say that she is 27 but she will in actuality still be only 14 and so maybe she's just doing all this so that she can legally buy alcohol while she is underage.

Kids today, eh.

Atlantic Dawn

It's rather selfish to have money blown keeping you frozen indefinitely.

247music

Im confused... If shes dead then what is freezing her body going to do for her?

The Specialist

Seems an awful waste of money for something that will most likely never be possible to do.

osarusan

A slightly more upmarket version of this I suppose.

Gatling

247music wrote: »

Im confused... If shes dead then what is freezing her body going to do for her?

She's hoping that in the future her cance can be cured and she can then be brought back to live a full happy life

The Backwards Man

How will she know how to use the three seashells?

retro:electro

But she died from cancer, so unless they find a cure for cancer and are able to bring people back to life sadly this is just money wasted.
From what I know this stuff is only supposed to *work* if you freeze yourself before you die. They will thaw her out in 500 years and she will still be dead.
Not only that but everyone she knows will be dead, but hey if the thought of coming back gave her some comfort in her final days then who am I to judge.

Felix Jones is God

I know somebody who was cryogenically frozen 7 years ago....he's still dead and his family footing the bill......cupid stunt .

The_Valeyard

While the idea has merit, technology for this to be a success is still a long way off.



Just need to avoid cryofreezing Khan.

Harry Palmr

It'll never actually happen, only a teenager or someone with a teenagers mentality would actually think this was worth undertaking.

If by some chance she was defrosted successfully what state would she be in, presumably memory would not survive the time elapsed so she'd have to be reborn basically. If the thawing process didn't work correctly then brain damage and other tissue/nerve issues would seem certain.

On the face of it, a strange decision, it would be strange if it was an adult but would have thought a 14 year old is still considered too young to be able to make such a decision for herself.

Very sad story though.

Felix Jones is God

The_Valeyard wrote: »

While the idea has merit, technology for this to be a success is still a long way off.



Just need to avoid cryofreezing Khan.

Chaka ?

Yeah, can't be subjected to anymore shíte breakdance music in the future, horrific stuff altogether

Felix Jones is God

They cryogenically freeze bodies and heads....did they just freeze her head...if so they need to find a cure for cancer and the guillotine

The flying mouse

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It's rather selfish to have money blown keeping you frozen indefinitely.

JS’s parents could not afford to pay for the cryonic process, which costs from £37,000, but her maternal grandparents raised the money needed for her body to be frozen and taken to a storage facility in America - one of only two countries, along with Russia, that has facilities for storing frozen bodies.

A lot more info and opinions in this link

https://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjttejq-LLQAhXCvRQKHRnCDlkQqUMIIjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2016%2F11%2F18%2Fcancer-girl-14-is-cryogenically-frozen-after-telling-judge-she-w%2F&usg=AFQjCNF3VIDbljs0q1tKY6BttBv8_ECnHg

Dont be at yourself

Would always have shared the general sentiment as the rest of this thread, but there's an excellent article that certainly had me thinking:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html

The flying mouse

Deleted User wrote: »

On the face of it, a strange decision, it would be strange if it was an adult but would have thought a 14 year old is still considered too young to be able to make such a decision for herself.

Very sad story though.

She got her mother to agree, while her estranged father did not, and yes it is actually very sad, even though my opening post is a bit flippant.

Ayuntamiento

Her father was totally in the wrong to oppose this. In doing so he created this legal battle which must have consumed the last few months of her life. He also ruined the final moments of his relationship with her. I assume she wanted nothing to do with him when he opposed her wishes like this. He is described in the media as her 'estranged father' so what right did he have in choosing how her body was disposed of?
She was 14yrs old. Therefore, she would have been consulted in all the decision making processes around her treatment once the doctors established that she was able to understand the consequences of all her actions. The judge in this case described her as bright and intelligent, and he sided with her, so you can assume she had capacity.
For all of you horrible people who described a DYING CHILD as selfish because cryogenics is expensive, I've read that her maternal family had already raised the money for this procedure via a GoFund me campaign.

Felix Jones is God

Dont be at yourself wrote: »

Would always have shared the general sentiment as the rest of this thread, but there's an excellent article that certainly had me thinking:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html

Ah well, a blog changes everything now doesn't it

shamrock55

But doesn't your soul leave your body when you die,what good is a body that ain't got no soul

IamtheWalrus

I suspect this was the little girl's coping mechanism in dealing with the terrible reality. Nothing more.

Ayuntamiento

None of this is about the likelihood of cryogenics actually working (my personal opinion is that she'll never be revived). It's about the fact that this terrified 14yr old girl couldn't accept that her one shot at life was over. She was quoted as saying that she couldn't accept the idea of her body being buried beneath the ground. I'm more than double her age and I can't accept the idea of myself being buried. Cremated sounds awful too.

If she got any peace from the idea that her body would be preserved then more power to her.

retro:electro

Ayuntamiento wrote: »

None of this is about the likelihood of cryogenics actually working (my personal opinion is that she'll never be revived). It's about the fact that this terrified 14yr old girl couldn't accept that her one shot at life was over. She was quoted as saying that she couldn't accept the idea of her body being buried beneath the ground. I'm more than double her age and I can't accept the idea of myself being buried. Cremated sounds awful too.

If she got any peace from the idea that her body would be preserved then more power to her.

So sad.

Academic

She was a fourteen-year-old girl who died a terrible death and who apparently took some comfort in doing this. Who are we to begrudge her that comfort?

It’s far more rational than taking comfort in believing in a non-existent afterlife, and few would begrudge others that comfort.

R.I.P.

Captain Chaos

Felix Jones is God wrote: »

They cryogenically freeze bodies and heads....did they just freeze her head...if so they need to find a cure for cancer and the guillotine

Just her head, it cost £37,000. It would have been £100,000+ for full body. They reckon they will be able to grow a body with your own stem cells and graft your head on in the future.

Ayuntamiento

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

When she is brought back to life in say 2029, her ID will obviously say that she is 27 but she will in actuality still be only 14 and so maybe she's just doing all this so that she can legally buy alcohol while she is underage.

Kids today, eh.

Wow I hope you feel good about yourself joking about this dead child.

Ayuntamiento

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It's rather selfish to have money blown keeping you frozen indefinitely.

The money has already been raised via a funding campaign. But yes you're right, what a selfish dying 14yr old cancer victim she was...

aaronjumper

Assuming they made it work and brought her back some time in the future, all her family and friends would be gone and she would know very little about the world she was currently in.

Not a great outcome any way you look at it.

SEPT 23 1989

A 14 year old dying of cancer can have anything she wants and if that bit of hope made things easier for her well so be it

diograis

Ayuntamiento wrote: »

None of this is about the likelihood of cryogenics actually working (my personal opinion is that she'll never be revived). It's about the fact that this terrified 14yr old girl couldn't accept that her one shot at life was over. She was quoted as saying that she couldn't accept the idea of her body being buried beneath the ground. I'm more than double her age and I can't accept the idea of myself being buried. Cremated sounds awful too.

If she got any peace from the idea that her body would be preserved then more power to her.

Really? I kinda like the idea of being cremated. We're all made of the same stuff as all around us anyway, and sure you won't care you'll be dead.

I'd say I will, definitely not getting buried anyway with a weathered old grave for relatives to visit intermittently before they forget or die off, given they even believe your soul's gone off to sit on a cloud playing the harp or whatever.

learn_more

247music wrote: »

Im confused... If shes dead then what is freezing her body going to do for her?

Exactly.

Cryogenics as seen in science fiction is the freezing of LIVE bodies to be awakened at some future date, even decades later.

In the case of incurable diseases the idea is to freeze a LIVE person with the disease and awakens them in the future when a cure has been found.

In this case in the news today, the girl is DEAD. So in her case for this to work, not only would the cryogentics side of it have work , something that has never been achieved before, but also the she is faced with the bigger problem of being brought BACK TO LIFE, which arguably is a ever more difficult problem than getting the cryogenics part of it to work !!!!

So I'm watching news reports on this today and I'm thinking is it April 1st, as no one in the news discussion ever brought up the subject of bringing a dead body back to life, instead, just talking about the cryogenics part of it.

Additionally in the news today there is a separate story about a guy who thinks he can he can perform a head transplant. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3949888/Controversial-surgeon-world-s-human-HEAD-transplant-reveals-virtual-reality-help-prepare-patients.html

Nuts !

4068ac1elhodqr

Before next ascendance towards the Pleiades (M45 cluster) in 2086...

...As an 'infinite spirit consciousness' transcending through this temporary (but delightful) light-body vessel, in this galactic orion-arm region, onboard the Gaia rock plane 'earth', one would rather not be stuck in the deep zero-point freeze for any prolonged time, thanks all the same, to whoever will still around in seventy earth years time.

Ayuntamiento

diograis wrote: »

Really? I kinda like the idea of being cremated. We're all made of the same stuff as all around us anyway, and sure you won't care you'll be dead.

I'd say I will, definitely not getting buried anyway with a weathered old grave for relatives to visit intermittently before they forget or die off, given they even believe your soul's gone off to sit on a cloud playing the harp or whatever.

I'd be more likely to choose cremation over burial. I HATE HATE HATE the idea of being cremated but I like the idea of my remains being more mobile. I'd love to be scattered in my favourite places and for those who love me to keep a bit of me. I feel like you're more free after cremation than you are after burial.
However this girl made her decision based on the same mad logic that you and I are making ours! The difference is that you and I will always have our wishes respected. This poor girl had to fight for that same right because of her age...??

Ayuntamiento

learn_more wrote: »

Exactly.

Cryogenics as seen in science fiction is the freezing of LIVE bodies to be awakened at some future date, even decades later.

In the case of incurable diseases the idea is to freeze a LIVE person with the disease and awakens them in the future when a cure has been found.

In this case in the news today, the girl is DEAD. So in her case for this to work, not only would the cryogentics side of it have work , something that has never been achieved before, but also the she is faced with the bigger problem of being brought BACK TO LIFE, which arguably is a ever more difficult problem than getting the cryogenics part of it to work !!!!

So I'm watching news reports on this today and I'm thinking is it April 1st, as no one in the news discussion ever brought up the subject of bringing a dead body back to life, instead, just talking about the cryogenics part of it.

Additionally in the news today there is a separate story about a guy who thinks he can he can perform a head transplant. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3949888/Controversial-surgeon-world-s-human-HEAD-transplant-reveals-virtual-reality-help-prepare-patients.html

Nuts !

The judge specifically said this was not about cryogenics or the likelihood of this girl being brought back to life. It was about giving this young woman the right to have her body disposed of as she requested.

snubbleste

Man breaking about it now LIVE on Channel 4 news.

TerrorFirmer

I don't think it's nuts at all. A young girl who had her life cruelly snatched away before it had even really begun. Cryogenics offers no guarantees and never pretended to - even Alcor themselves are keen to stress that they can offer zero guarantees on future revival. But it's about potential and possabilities and looking to the future. Not hard to understand why a 14 year old wished to be cryogenically stored - what had she to lose? Absolutely nothing, but she died with a little hope.

failinis

I don't think this little girl will ever be alive again, she is dead and that is it.

However if that idea of freezing her self and coming back - if that was a comfort to her, then fair enough.
I would do almost anything for a dying person I cared about, even if they wanted frozen (and I think thats a pile of crap).

Flint Fredstone

I agree with the sentiment for the sake of the little girl's last days but why are people actually discussing it like it could happen?

She's dead. Even if they froze her while she was still alive and a cure for her cancer was found, she would still be dead as freezing her solid would like... you know... kill her.
There's no cure for death.

The Backwards Man

A Journal comment on this actually made me laugh;

'your brain cells are dead, at best you'll come back as a Daily Mail reader.'

henryporter

Do thawed frozen raspberries come back as vibrant fresh looking raspberries - no, they come back as raspberry sludge.

TerrorFirmer

henryporter wrote: »

Do thawed frozen raspberries come back as vibrant fresh looking raspberries - no, they come back as raspberry sludge.

'Freezing' in Cryogenics is in no way comparable to conventional freezing.

LordSutch

The one thing that occours to me is that when and (if) they revive you in one hundred or one thousand years time, you will be on your tod. No family, no loved ones, no next of kin, no friends . . . all dead, long gone and forgotton

So although you might wake up with an all curing injection, you will soon discover that anybody & everybody you ever loved is now dead.

Also, (for those of you that believe in your soul), what happens with that? does your soul depart your body when they cryogenically freeze you, or does it stay within you for the duration of the freeze?

SEPT 23 1989

LordSutch wrote: »

The one thing that occours to me is that when and (if) they revive you in one hundred or one thousand years time, you will be on your tod. No family, no loved ones, no next of kin, no friends . . . all dead, long gone and forgotton

So although you might wake up with an all curing injection, you will soon discover that anybody & everybody you ever loved is now dead.

Also, (for those of you that believe in your soul), what happens with that? does your soul depart your body when they cryogenically freeze you, or does it stay within you for the duration of the freeze?

I think she would take the loneliness over the cancer

TerrorFirmer

It's also morbid to consider that if all brain activity is completely suspended, if it could be revived/retrieved or otherwise brought back at a later date, it would be like little to no time had passed to the person, but could be 50, 100 or 200 years into the future. Imagine going to sleep in 2016 and waking up tomorrow to discover it was 2096.

If it can be done with embryos, why not with bodies?