A Terminally Ill Girl Has Won The Right To Be Frozen

A terminally ill girl from the UK has won an unprecedented court case to be cryonically frozen in a special facility in America.

Her father objected to the cryonic procedure that would see the young girl's body preserved at low temperatures and potentially reanimated at a later date.

The 14-year-old girl, who had been suffering from a rare and terminal form of cancer, implored that the court rule that her mother have sole say over the disposal of her body.

The ruling was made in October during a private hearing, but Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled that the case could not be reported upon whilst the girl was still alive as she expressed that she would find media coverage distressing. It was also ruled that no one in the case could be publicly identified.

After the ruling the teenager expressed gratitude towards Mr Justice Jackson, describing him as her "hero" after the ruling on October 6th. She passed away from her illness 11 days later on October 17th.

In a letter to Mr Justice Jackson the teenager said, "I am only 14 years old and I don't want to die but I know I am going to die." Of the procedure she said, "I think being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up - even in hundreds of years' time."

Cryonics is the process of using incredibly low temperatures to preserve human tissue, especially brain matter. The process works off the controversial theory that the brain doesn't have to be continuously active to retain memory and that a dead brain can be sufficiently preserved so as to retain personality.

Cryonics uses temperatures below -130°C, in an attempt to preserve brain information and hopefully allow for future revival. Typically a body will be frozen with a type of anti-freeze to prevent ice damage. At the present time even with the best technology it is very difficult to preserve a brain without damaging it.

As of yet we are unable to revive a frozen body and relies on hypothetical future medical science.