The teenage girl’s instructions were direct: She did not want to be buried, but to be frozen — with the hope she can continue her life in the future when cancer is cured.
“I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up,” the 14-year-old wrote to a judge before her recent death.
She said “being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up — even in hundreds of years’ time.”
Her plaintive words convinced British High Court Judge Peter Jackson to grant her final wishes in what he called the first case of its kind in England — and possibly the world.
The judge said the girl had chosen the most basic preservation option at a cost of about £37,000 (US$45,846).
The girl’s divorced parents disagreed about the procedure, with the mother favoring it and the father initially saying no, though he softened his stance as his daughter’s death neared.
The girl, who along with her parents cannot be named for legal reasons, asked the court to designate that only her mother could dispose of her remains so that she could be cryogenically preserved, an unproven technique that some people believe might allow frozen bodies to be brought back to life.
The concept is regarded with widespread skepticism by many in the medical community.
“It is no surprise that this application is the only one of its kind to have come before the courts in this country — and probably anywhere else,” the judge said.
He called the case “an example of the new questions that science poses to the law.”
The judge made the ruling last month and imposed restrictions on any media coverage while the girl was still alive out of respect for her stated desire for privacy.
His ruling cleared the way for the girl’s remains to be taken to a specialist facility in the US for the start of the preservation process.
The girl was too ill to attend court proceedings, but Jackson visited her in a hospital.
He said he was impressed by the “valiant way” she dealt with her impending death from a rare form of cancer.
He said she spent her final months researching cryonics on the Internet.
Jackson said his decision was based on resolving the dispute between the parents and did not represent a finding on cryogenic preservation.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese