Suggests people would have to promise not to reproduce as a trade-off

Woods says sending our dead into the future only adds to the population

false hope that it will actually work

When in reality this gives

A dying 14-year-old child recently won the right to be cryogenically frozen after her death following a UK court battle.

In a letter to the judge, the child wrote:

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.

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A dying 14-year-old recently won the right to be cryogenically frozen after her death following a UK court battle. There are no laws which ban the practice outright but there may be legal difficulties for cryonics because most countries specify how a dead body must be disposed of

COULD IT ACTUALLY WORK? Human and other animal tissues can of course be preserved. The corpses of mammoths, preserved in the permafrost, have been shown to have viable fragments of DNA after thousands of years. More to the point, human sperm and embryos can also be preserved for several years and still retain the capacity for life. If this technique were to ever work, perhaps a condition of future resurrection should be an agreement not to reproduce during one's current lifetime as a trade-off against a growing population. If it could work then cryogenics might be construed as a caring option particularly in the light of a dying child's plea. Advertisement

The premature death of a young person is a particular tragedy and one cannot but be moved by the letter.

According to newspaper reports, several children, some as young as seven, have also signed up to be frozen after their deaths.

Accurate figures of how many people have been cryogenically preserved are difficult to obtain because there is no system of recording this information.

There are probably several hundred in the US and Russia where facilities are known to exist.

There are no laws which ban the practice outright but there may be legal difficulties for cryonics because most countries specify how a dead body must be disposed of – and exclude long-term storage of this kind.

But what are the deeper moral and ethical issues of allowing the practice?

And what would the consequences be if cryopreservation became mainstream?

Cryonics is a process of deep cooling the body with the aim of preserving the tissues at very low temperatures.

In effect, it is a form of cold mummification.

People who turn to cryogenics are usually captivated by the possibility of having their body preserved until some indeterminate future time when it is imagined that science and technology will be capable of curing any cause of death, repairing damaged tissues and, most importantly, bringing them back to life.

But is such a thing plausible?

DYING GIRL'S INCREDIBLE LETTER BEGGING TO BE FROZEN The British girl now frozen in America met the judge to prove she was capable of making decisions about her body and wrote him a letter explaining her reasons. Mr Justice Jackson said: 'I am only 14-years-old and I don't want to die but I know I am going to die.' '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 may find a cure for my cancer and wake me up.' 'I want to have this chance. This is my wish.' Justice Jackson said that she died peacefully knowing she would be frozen and discussed the arrangements before on the day she died. Advertisement

Human and other animal tissues can of course be preserved.

The corpses of mammoths, preserved in the permafrost, have been shown to have viable fragments of DNA after thousands of years.

More to the point, human sperm and embryos can also be preserved for several years and still retain the capacity for life.

Process: Bodies are drained of blood on a table packed with ice(left) and then frozen slowly over several weeks before reaching -196˚ C and being kept in a regulated cylinder (right)

GIRL IS STORED AT CENTRE SET UP BY LOVER OF SCI-FI The British girl is in one of America's two main cryo-facilities - the Cryonics Institute near Detroit - where its founder Robert Ettinger was frozen with two of his wives when he died aged 92. Landmark case: The girl has been frozen at become the first British child to be cryogenically frozen and in the Cryonics Institute in Detroit The former American physics teacher called Robert Ettinger, inspired by early science fiction writers, began the cryonics movement by writing a highly controversial book, The Prospect Of Immortality, which predicted that death might be reversible. The 1964 thesis sparked such acclaim and outrage that the U.S. authorities feared thousands would opt to be frozen in time - and when he died he chose to do it himself, as did his family. Packed in dry ice, the British girl arrived at The Cryonics Institute, based in Clinton Township, Michigan. There she was placed in a 'cryostat' – a cold storage chamber. Her arrival at the institute, based in the outskirts of Detroit, may have been held up by paperwork issues, as it took eight days to get her to the US. The case notes detailed the arrival of 'patient 143…a 14-year-old female from London.' Advertisement

Although most scientists are extremely sceptical about the possibility of ever reanimating a corpse that has been cryogenically frozen, it only takes one person claiming 'never-say-never' to inspire some individuals to latch on to a promissory future featuring a techno-science fix for human mortality.

The existential tussle with human mortality has been a feature of culture for as long as thoughts have been recordable in art or the written word.

People turned to religion in the hope of resurrection and immortality in the same way that some are now turning to science.

When the Roman philosopher Epicurus tried to persuade us that 'death should be nothing to us' he failed to assuage the deep human anxiety in the face of mortality.

So, given that it is so natural for humans to seek immortality, is cryopreservation, purchased by well-informed individuals who have the personal wealth to afford it, really wrong?

WHAT IS IT, HOW MUCH IS IT AND HOW DOES IT WORK? Process: The girl will have been treated within minutes of death - flown to America and then slowly frozen to an ultra-low temperature in the hope, one day, she'll be woken up again. Evperts wonder if she will be treated as a patient rather than a curiosity in the future WHAT IS CRYOPRESERVATION? The deep freezing of a body to - 196C (-321F). Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged. The hope is that medical science will advance enough to bring the patient back to life. Two main US organisations carry out 'cryonics' – Alcor, in Arizona, and Cryonics Institute, Michigan. HOW IS IT MEANT TO WORK? The process can only take place once the body is legally dead. Ideally, it begins within two minutes of the heart stopping – and no more than 15. The body must be packed in ice and injected with chemicals to reduce blood clotting. At the cryonics facility, it is cooled to just above OC and the blood is replaced with a solution to preserve organs. The body is injected with another solution to stop ice crystals forming in organs and tissues, then cooled to - 130C. The final step is to place the body into a container which is lowered into a tank of liquid nitrogen at - 196C. WHAT'S THE CHANCE OF SUCCESS? Many experts say there is none. Organs such as the heart and kidneys have never been successfully frozen and thawed, so it is even less likely a whole body – and the brain – could be without irreversible damage. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Charges at the Cryonics Institute, where the girl has been stored, start at around $35,000 (£28,000) to 'members' for whole-body cryopreservation. The girl was charged £37,000, which may include costs such as transportation. Rival group Alcor charges $200,000 (£161,000) for whole-body preservation. HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE? Cryonics organisations claim it could be decades or even centuries. However Medical experts say once cells are damaged during freezing and turned to 'mush' they cannot be converted back to living tissue, any more than you can turn a scrambled egg back into a raw egg. Advertisement

Looked at from this perspective one could say that it is merely an expression of a libertarian freedom which tolerates the spending of personal resources on wasteful luxuries – although many might regard this as inherently unfair and claim that access to these services should be made more equitable, perhaps even provided as part of routine healthcare.

The problem with the current debate is that advocates of cryonics combine science fiction with science fact which, for some, amounts to a persuasive hype.

But for such claims to be sustained, there needs to be much stronger evidence that restoration following cryogenics was more than a fantasy.

And there are even more profound issues than this.

Cryonics, after all, has the potential to be deeply exploitative of those at an especially vulnerable time in their lives, in particular those facing the premature death of a young family member.

Cryogenic preservation features in several science fiction films, including Forever Young staring Mel Gibson (pictured). What's more, the world's population is expanding rapidly and sending our dead into the future would only add to that

Although companies offering the service are at one level candid about the procedure, they also subtly promise more.

The language used in their advertising is that of medical care, the deceased is referred to as a 'patient' and the procedure described as a boundary-breaking treatment extending into the future.

This certainly has the potential to offer false hope.

The legal status of such organisations is untested in the UK, but it is unlikely that they would conform to the requirements of the Human Tissue Act 2004.

More specific regulation may force such organisations to be more candid in their literature and less likely to prey on the vulnerable.

HOW GIRL, 14, IS PATIENT 143 IN DETROIT CRYOGENICS CENTRE - BUT WAS HER BODY HELD UP BY PAPERWORK? Robert Ettinger, 92, pictured in the 1960s, has been frozen in the Cryonics Institute he founded after his death By Colin Fernandez, Science Correspondent On the website of the organisation freezing her body, she was simply described as 'patient 143'. Case notes that read like science fiction detail how, packed in dry ice, she arrived at The Cryonics Institute, based in Clinton Township, Michigan. There she was placed in a 'cryostat' – a cold storage chamber. Her arrival at the institute, based in the outskirts of Detroit, may have been held up by paperwork issues, as it took eight days to get her to the US. The case notes detailed the arrival of 'patient 143…a 14-year-old female from London.' The significance of the number 143 is the number of human bodies held at the facility. The notes said the girl's family had contracted Cryonics UK to 'provide standby, cooling and transportation of the patient'. The UK group also carried out perfusion – the injection of 'anti-freeze' compounds in the body to stop ice forming. It said a 'case report' from Cryonics UK will be made available when it is received. It took eight days for the body to arrive in the US – a delay that may have been caused 'while the necessary paperwork was obtained for transportation'. The report said: 'The patient arrived at the CI facility, packed in dry ice, at 5:00pm on the 25th of October, approximately 8 days after death. 'The patient was then placed in the computer controlled cooling chamber to cool to liquid nitrogen temperature. 'The human cooling program from dry ice was selected and the time needed to cool the patient to liquid nitrogen temperature was 24 hours. 'The patient was then placed in a cryostat for longterm cryonic storage.' Dry ice has a temperature of minus 78c. (109.3f) Liquid nitrogen is much colder at minus 196c (-321F) The institute said at the time of her death – October 17, 2016 – she was a member of the institute. Membership which costs $120 a year, with an initial charge of $75 allows cryopreservation at a reduced cost - $35,000. After the 14-year-old arrived, two further bodies have arrived at the cold store. Patient 144 was a 56 year old woman who arrived at Michigan by private jet, and patient 145 was a 78-year-old female from Michigan – who arrived much sooner – within two hours after death. Advertisement

There is also the question about resources.

Isn't it a form of hubris to say to future generations that 'you should devote your resources to saving and restoring me'.

What reason would future generations have for treating me as a patient rather than a curiosity – a strange ice-mummy from the 21st century?

What's more, the world's population is expanding rapidly.

Sending our dead into the future would only add to that.

So, if this technique were to ever work, perhaps a condition of future resurrection should be an agreement not to reproduce during one's current lifetime as a trade-off against a growing population.

If it could work then cryogenics might be construed as a caring option particularly in the light of a dying child's plea.

However, what form of care would it be to send a child, alone, into some indeterminate future – no family, no friends, no resources? It is in circumstances like these that the words of Dylan Thomas are often quoted as a defiant response to death: 'Do not go gentle into that good night.'