The teenager, known as JS and suffering with terminal cancer, wrote a letter to a judge arguing that having her body preserved would be her only hope of being ‘woken up’ when a cure to the disease was found. The girl - who died eleven days after writing the letter - was supported by her mother but her father had tried to block the move. Ruling in her favour, Justice Peter Jackson commended “the valiant way in which she was facing her predicament”.
The ruling meant the body of JS was taken to a storage facility in the US shortly after her death where it is kept in liquid nitrogen at -196°c. For those who sign up to the process, the hope is that with cures found and advances in technology they will be able to continue their lives after being medically thawed.
The facts
- There are currently around 300 patients who’ve been fully or partially frozen.
- Around 2,500 are signed up to be frozen after death (just under 100 from the UK).
- Around 150 pets have been frozen.
- Costs for a human can often expect to reach $200,000.
One last hope…
At the age of 14, there are plenty of restrictions on what you can and cannot do. One area of interest linked to this particular case is that you are not necessarily entitled to consent to or reject medical treatment while alive. That remains the responsibility of a parent or guardian. Children under the age of 16 can only consent to their own treatment if they’re believed to have enough ‘intelligence, competence and understanding to fully appreciate what’s involved’. This is known as the Gillick competence. It basically means if you’re mature enough - you make the decision. But how do we decide who is mature enough? The way society is evolving and the greater access to information means the idea of a mature teenager is a tough one to define.
The idea becomes even more complex when the decisions, like this one, are at the level of life and death. Should we expect a 14-year-old to be able to make a decision on freezing their body - especially in an industry which runs as a business and faces accusations of exploiting patients by offering false hope? Steve Fouch from the Christian Medical Fellowship remains unconvinced. Speaking to Premier Youth and Children’s Work, he said: “It’s dangling a faint hope to people with serious problems, [suggesting] that sometime in the future a cure may be found and that the technology will be there to bring their body back to life. At the moment we can’t do any of those things. It’s a long shot, a gamble, and ultimately in a society where there is no hope this is the kind of straw that people will grasp for.”
Teenage rights
With the Gillick competence for medical procedures, it is expected that a psychologist would speak with the young person and determine whether it is right for them to make the decision on potential treatment. Paul Nash is senior chaplain at Birmingham children’s hospital and is unsure about taking responsibility away from young people. Speaking to YCW, he said: “We either regress back to being over maternal / paternal and making all the decisions because adults know best or we move forward with helping and equipping young people to make decisions in their life. It’s quite post-modern to do the latter but we can’t regress back that much.”
His view is supported by Jim Linthicum, senior chaplain at Great Ormond Street hospital. “We have to accept that the biggest responsibility for us is to ensure she has as much information as is possible for her to know and effectively make her decision,” he told YCW. “We need to give this in such a way that talks not about a lack of maturity but a lack of life experience. Never-the-less, it is up to her.”
Nigel Pimlott is a writer and consultant on youth issues. Speaking to YCW, he questioned whether this was even a matter of age: “As a general principle I like to devolve power and responsibility to young people so they can make their own decisions, in line with their level of maturity and development. The bigger challenge for me in this case is that no one really knows the outcome of freezing and I am not sure anybody is particularly qualified to make such a huge decision, irrespective of what age they might be.”
It seems we’re just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unpacking this issue. This is an industry which is growing. More and more people are signing up to take part in the procedure and technology is advancing at rapid rates. As society grapples with this we can expect to see further test cases and further divided opinion.
False hope?
Many cynics suggest the possibility of this ever being successful is very slim and even if it does work patients won’t be able to live a ‘normal’ life. However those involved in the process remain confident that a time will come where medical capabilities will make almost all conditions curable. They also say when a body is frozen under ‘favourable conditions’ there is a ‘reasonable chance’ the process will work. Those involved are given no time-frame and no 100 per cent guarantees due to long-term risk such as socio-economic disruption or damage to facilities by things such as earthquakes.
Head to youthandchildrens.work where you can hear interviews with the contributors above and give us your thoughts too. Contributors to this piece wanted it known that their prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones. Debates on ethical issues can feel impersonal but we need to remember these are real scenarios with real people involved.
