A terminally ill teenager who wanted her body to be cryogenically frozen in the hope she could “live longer” won a landmark legal battle shortly before she died.
The 14-year-old’s divorced parents had become embroiled in a dispute about whether her remains should be taken to a specialist facility in the US and cryogenically preserved.
The girl, who lived in the London area with her mother and had a rare form of cancer, had asked a High Court judge to rule that her mother – who supported her wish to be cryogenically preserved – should be the only person allowed to make decisions about the disposal of her body.
Mr Justice Peter Jackson made the ruling she wanted in October  – following a private hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London – and lawyers say her remains have now been taken to the US and frozen. The judge had said nothing about the case could be reported while the teenager was alive, after she said media coverage would distress her. He also ruled that no-one involved could be identified, in line with the girl’s wishes. She had been too ill to attend the court hearing.
The judge said he had been moved by the “valiant way” in which she had faced her “predicament”. He said the girl’s application was the only one of its kind to have come before a court in England and Wales – and probably anywhere else. But her father had been reluctant to approve the plan and had been concerned about the consequences of his daughter being cryogenically preserved, and had been concerned about the costs involved.
“Even if the treatment is successful and she is brought back to life in, let’s say, 200 years, she may not find any relative and she might not remember things,” he had told Mr Justice Jackson.
“She may be left in a desperate situation – given that she is still only 14-years-old – and will be in the United States of America.”

source: independent.com.uk