'Right to be frozen' ruling for UK teenager triggers concern

[rooster59]

'Right to be frozen' ruling for UK teenager triggers concern

 

 

Is it a scientific way of cheating death? Or a ‘false hope’ fantasy for the vulnerable?

 

Medical experts are raising serious concerns about cryogenics – the practice of deep-freezing a dead human in the hope a future cure will bring them back to life.

 

It follows news that a British teenager had won the right for her body to be preserved.

 

“She was 14, bright, intelligent and articulate,” the girl’s lawyer Zoe Fleetwood explained.

 

“She was determined. She knew in detail the process she was seeking to undertake and she persuaded me and she persuaded the court of her maturity and capacity to make such decisions.”

 

Terminally ill with cancer, the girl was supported in her wish by her mother, but not her father. A High Court judge gave her mother the right to decide.

 

But some fear that preserving a loved one’s body in this way could get in the way of the grieving process.

 

“None of us know what will happen to this girl in 100 years time in terms of the cryogenics and whether or not she can be brought back to life,” said British family doctor Ellie Cannon.

 

“It is almost something out of science fiction. And I think that false hope could be damaging for her mum and her bereavement process because at what point is she going to reach acceptance?”

 

The technique is unproven and expensive – raising further fears.

 

But for those like the unnamed British girl – now deep frozen in America – even the outside hope of a second chance at life is priceless.

 

 

-- © Copyright Euronews 2016-11-19

[SgtRock]

1 hour ago, rooster59 said:

The technique is unproven and expensive – raising further fears.

 

As long as the mother is paying, crack on. Its your money.

 

No doubt that there will now be a flurry of court cases demanding that it is available on the NHS * Free * of charge.

[Kerryd]

"Waaaa - we don't want her to be frozen because it may affect my grieving and the world revolves around me so WAAAAAAAA".

 

Who the **** do those sanctimonious @&$&#$(@ think they are ? They don't like it ? Tough **** for them.

 

Whether or not the science is proven doesn't matter (unless someone is being fed false information). Opting to be cyrogenically frozen was her choice. Who knows what miracles science (not religion) will achieve in the next century. Look at every thing that has been achieved in the the last 100 years and we are growing smarter exponentially (in some parts of the world at least).

100 years or so from now, assuming we haven't annihilated ourselves before then, she could very well have the last laugh if they figure out how to defrost her and cure her cancer (or clone her or whatever). That's probably what has some of those self-righteous ****** concerned, that she may live again after they are long gone.

 

If I have the money and want to be cremated and my ashes shot into space, nobody says a word.

If I want to be cremated and have my ashes compressed into a "cremation diamond", no one cares.

If I want to be embalmed and buried sitting on my Harley - meh, already been done before so who cares.

If I want a big blow out funeral party with huge crypt and custom made coffin and high-profile people in attendance - whatever, no one cares.

My dad told me "When I die just burn me and be done with it". It didn't make the news and nobody would have cared anyways.

 

But this kid makes an (apparently) informed decision, supported by a "High Court" and people have a problem with it ? 

 

500 years ago people thought that the sun rotated around the world, that heaven was on top of the clouds and hell was at the center of the (flat) earth. (Unfortunately, there are some who still think that.) 

If you went back in time 300 years ago and used a zippo lighter and talking about moving pictures displayed on a machine the size of a slice of bread, you'd have likely been burned at the stake for being a witch/warlock.

Even 100 years ago, if you'd told people that in the future we'd be able to destroy the largest cities in the world with a single bomb, fired from thousands of miles away, that man would walk on the moon 50(ish) years later and that we'd be sending robots to Mars, they'd have stuck you in a looney bin (asylum).

 

Imagine what people 100, 300, 500 years from now will be thinking/saying about the "primitive" society we live in now ? 

 

[A1Str8]

If she was bright and intelligent then she would have known that once the consciousness leaves the body, nothing will bring it back to life. 

[Gulfsailor]

24 minutes ago, A1Str8 said:

If she was bright and intelligent then she would have known that once the consciousness leaves the body, nothing will bring it back to life. 

Her consciousness is a product of her brain. So that will be frozen with the brain, and will be there when they find a way to defrost the brain and get it started again.   

Unless you mean her soul, in which case we are no longer talking about brightness and intelligence, but the opposite, e.g. religion. 

[klauskunkel]

once fluids turn to crystal by being frozen they will rupture cells...imo it is an expensive form of suicide

[stevenl]

4 minutes ago, klauskunkel said:

once fluids turn to crystal by being frozen they will rupture cells...imo it is an expensive form of suicide

How can it be suicide when she is dead already?

[freebyrd]

I reckon if I'd only been given 14 years, I would take this option. She isn't really hurting anyone and sounds to me like a brave and intelligent girl. So sad that she was robbed of her life before it had really begun.

 

RIP and I hope your wish comes true.

[jollyhangmon]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

How can it be suicide when she is dead already?

 

Provided someone believes in rising by being defrosted (...!) suicide  is a perfectly acceptable description for blowing their vessels by freezing contained liquids in the first place.

[Enoon]

 

The parents are divorced.

 

The girl died.

 

After she died the mother wanted the corpse to be frozen (as the girl wanted), the father wanted a nice funeral.

 

The court decided that the mother had the right to decide what happened to the cadaver.

 

The mother paid for expensive deep-freeze instead of a funeral.

 

A bizarre "custody" case.

 

End of "story".

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/18/teenage-girls-wish-for-preservation-after-death-agreed-to-by-court

 

There are no "implications" in this case for Society or the State, other than the regulation of organisations that seek to provide a freezing service:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HttagISaBzU

 

 

 

.

Edited November 19, 2016 by Enoon

[thaibeachlovers]

4 hours ago, SgtRock said:

 

As long as the mother is paying, crack on. Its your money.

 

No doubt that there will now be a flurry of court cases demanding that it is available on the NHS * Free * of charge.

I just checked on google. Apparently the mother's parents raised the money.

I believe the father disagreed because he feared being required to pay, but that could be wrong.

 

I doubt it will be made free on the NHS as Drs oppose it. No doubt some will try to cash in on a lucrative market as the rich try to live forever.

 

I read a novel long ago about a man frozen and woken up hundreds of years later. He had left himself a large sum of money for when he woke up, but inflation had reduced the value of the money to virtually zero.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, Gulfsailor said:

Her consciousness is a product of her brain. So that will be frozen with the brain, and will be there when they find a way to defrost the brain and get it started again.   

Unless you mean her soul, in which case we are no longer talking about brightness and intelligence, but the opposite, e.g. religion. 

Has any animal actually been frozen like that and reawakened? If the body becomes a lump of frozen meat, and can be reanimated, then surely legal human cloning can not be far away. Like many things, there is no discussion going on about such important things.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, klauskunkel said:

once fluids turn to crystal by being frozen they will rupture cells...imo it is an expensive form of suicide

Which is why they use chemicals that will not expand to replace blood.

 

One possible solution that has already been widely written about in science fiction is to download one's consciousness into a computer ( which would control a biomechanical body ). If consciousness survives freezing, that would be the most likely fate for those presently frozen.

However, who knows what the human race will become in the future, if it survives at all. After all, our bodies are just biological conveyances for our consciousness.

 

[A1Str8]

4 hours ago, Gulfsailor said:

Her consciousness is a product of her brain. So that will be frozen with the brain, and will be there when they find a way to defrost the brain and get it started again.   

Unless you mean her soul, in which case we are no longer talking about brightness and intelligence, but the opposite, e.g. religion. 

Consciousness meaning spirit. Her soul. Which has absolutely nothing to do with religion. It's simple physics.

It's the nature of existence. 

[Carib]

In a way it is the modern way of mummification. 

[thaibeachlovers]

4 minutes ago, A1Str8 said:

Consciousness meaning spirit. Her soul. Which has absolutely nothing to do with religion. It's simple physics.

It's the nature of existence. 

Conciousness is just electricity, or chemical reactions, passing from one point to another in the brain.

A soul, IMO, is what makes us different from animals that also have brains that function in exactly the same way as ours, but have little freedom to deviate from genetic imperatives.

Edited November 19, 2016 by thaibeachlovers

[A1Str8]

17 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Conciousness is just electricity, or chemical reactions, passing from one point to another in the brain.

A soul, IMO, is what makes us different from animals that also have brains that function in exactly the same way as ours, but have little freedom to deviate from genetic imperatives.

Consciousness is what we are. Your soul is energy conscious of itself. It is consciousness. 

[Xircal]

4 hours ago, klauskunkel said:

once fluids turn to crystal by being frozen they will rupture cells...imo it is an expensive form of suicide

 

Apparently, they remove the water from your dead body and replace it with a chemical to prevent crystalization: http://zidbits.com/2011/02/can-a-human-be-frozen-and-brought-back-to-life/

 

[klauskunkel]

21 minutes ago, Xircal said:

 

Apparently, they remove the water from your dead body and replace it with a chemical to prevent crystalization: http://zidbits.com/2011/02/can-a-human-be-frozen-and-brought-back-to-life/

 

so the body is freeze-dried..., well it works for coffee 

[Khon Kaen Dave]

With all the medical why's and why not's.With all the problems,stated,of bringing a body out of this state after,say 100 years(because we are nowhere near curing some cancers/diseases yet.

It must be remembered that this girl was a child of 14.What would she be waking up to in the distant future?There are many problems.her family and descendants would be long dead.It is unlikely that any of her modern age relatives could be found,and if they were,would they really want her?or would it be for financial and notoriety reasons.

She will still have the mind of a 14 year old,with stunted education of her age.

Who will take care of her? Will there be centre's for the recently returned to life,set up to care for these people?

She would be in a completely new world,that she will niether,be part of,or understand.Confusion would be a tremendous problem,not really knowing her place in such a new society.

The other question is,that if she conquered this brave new world,and later wanted to produce children of her own,would there be any complication with a 114 year old womb,and Fallopian tubes?How long would it be before she was finally out of the news and media light? would her children be constantly mythered by the media of the day?

There are many other problems to be considered.What if the company dissolves or is destroyed in the event of another war?

You cannot simply 'freeze' a child,when the future is unknown and circumspect/unsure.

We are born,we live,and sadly we die.Death is part of life, thats the way it is,and is meant to be,like it or not.

And as a last word,the cost of this procedure and the storing of it, is hugely expensive,who will pay when the mother is dead?

[partington]

This is all a bit crazy.

 

We are not taking about a cure for cancer here. We are talking about a world in which death has been overcome.  Once you are dead, if a procedure were developed to bring dead people to life, it doesn't matter how you died unless your body was completely destroyed.

 

There is a confusion here between curing a disease and being able to literally revive the dead. Is anyone seriously contemplating a future where anyone who died could simply be brought back to life?  I'd suggest that a cure for death is a bloody sight more unlikely than a cure for cancer, so developing a treatment for whatever the cancer this unfortunate girl died from would be the least difficult part of the whole enterprise.

 

The chances of being able to routinely bring someone back to life many years post death are infinitesimal, whether a cure for whatever killed them existed or not!

[Khon Kaen Dave]

Partington

Is your post in my direction? because if it is,you will misunderstand that i am against the procedure as much as you are.

[thaibeachlovers]

16 hours ago, A1Str8 said:

Consciousness is what we are. Your soul is energy conscious of itself. It is consciousness. 

Depends if you believe we are just a lump of meat with arms and legs and a brain that came from nothing and will return to nothing, or if you believe there is more to life than what we can see or hear.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, Khon Kaen Dave said:

With all the medical why's and why not's.With all the problems,stated,of bringing a body out of this state after,say 100 years(because we are nowhere near curing some cancers/diseases yet.

It must be remembered that this girl was a child of 14.What would she be waking up to in the distant future?There are many problems.her family and descendants would be long dead.It is unlikely that any of her modern age relatives could be found,and if they were,would they really want her?or would it be for financial and notoriety reasons.

She will still have the mind of a 14 year old,with stunted education of her age.

Who will take care of her? Will there be centre's for the recently returned to life,set up to care for these people?

She would be in a completely new world,that she will niether,be part of,or understand.Confusion would be a tremendous problem,not really knowing her place in such a new society.

The other question is,that if she conquered this brave new world,and later wanted to produce children of her own,would there be any complication with a 114 year old womb,and Fallopian tubes?How long would it be before she was finally out of the news and media light? would her children be constantly mythered by the media of the day?

There are many other problems to be considered.What if the company dissolves or is destroyed in the event of another war?

You cannot simply 'freeze' a child,when the future is unknown and circumspect/unsure.

We are born,we live,and sadly we die.Death is part of life, thats the way it is,and is meant to be,like it or not.

And as a last word,the cost of this procedure and the storing of it, is hugely expensive,who will pay when the mother is dead?

As I understand it, the cost is a one off. However, if anyone believes that I have a bridge for sale. If in one hundred years a bill has to be paid for continuing maintenance will her relatives ( if any ) be willing to pay, or will they allow her body to be finally disposed of.

 

I hope that everyone knows that companies are working on ways to keep people alive indefinitely, but it will only be for the rich. Imagine a world where Soros lives forever- aaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhh.

[thaibeachlovers]

16 hours ago, Xircal said:

 

Apparently, they remove the water from your dead body and replace it with a chemical to prevent crystalization: http://zidbits.com/2011/02/can-a-human-be-frozen-and-brought-back-to-life/

 

True, and if freezing damaged cells, fetuses would not be able to be frozen and unthawed, or eggs/ sperm frozen, as they are.

[thaibeachlovers]

20 hours ago, freebyrd said:

I reckon if I'd only been given 14 years, I would take this option. She isn't really hurting anyone and sounds to me like a brave and intelligent girl. So sad that she was robbed of her life before it had really begun.

 

RIP and I hope your wish comes true.

The only people that will benefit from all this publicity are the cryogenic companies that will be gearing up for an expected rush of customers.

It would have been better if the publicity ban had been permanent.