A British girl who died after a terminal illness won the right to have her body frozen in an unprecedented ruling, the High Court said on Friday.
英国高等法院11月18日透露,一名因绝症而去世的英国女孩获得了死后冷冻遗体的准许,这是一次史无前例的裁决。
The 14-year-old girl from London had written to a judge explaining she wanted a chance to "live longer" after suffering from a rare form of cancer.
这个14岁的伦敦女孩曾给一名法官写信,表示她希望在患上罕见癌症之后,有机会“活得久一些”。
She had researched and decided to undergo cryonics, the process through which people's bodies are frozen in the hope they will be brought back to life with the help of future medical advancements.
她生前研究了人体冷冻法,并决定将它付诸实践。这项技术把人的身体冰冻起来,以期未来先进的医疗技术能使亡者重生。
"I am only 14-years-old and I don't want to die but I know I am going to die," she wrote to the judge.
“我现在才14岁,我不想死,但我知道我别无选择。”她在信中写道。
"I think being cryo-preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up -- even in hundreds of years' time."
“我想冷冻法能给我一个痊愈和苏醒的机会,即使可能是在几百年之后。”
The girl launched legal action to request that her mother, who supported the child's wishes, be the only person allowed to make decisions about the disposal of her body.
这个女孩通过法律诉讼要求她的母亲成为唯一一个有权在她死后处置遗体的人,她的母亲支持女儿冷冻遗体的心愿。
Her parents are divorced and the teenager's father initially objected to his daughter's plan.
她的父母离异,父亲最初不同意女儿的这个想法。
Judge Peter Jackson ruled in the girl's favour in October following a private hearing at the High Court of England and Wales in London.
在伦敦的英格兰和威尔士高等法院举行了一次不开庭审理之后,十月,法官彼得.杰克逊做出了裁决,女孩如愿以偿。
The girl was too ill to attend the hearing and has since died, with her remains being taken to the United States and cryogenically frozen.
这个小姑娘当时已病得无法出席审理,死后,她的遗体被送去美国冷冻了起来。
US-based Cryonics Institute issued a statement saying that the teenager had arrived at their facility and "packed in dry ice, at 5:00 pm on the 25th of October, approximately 8 days after death," becoming its 144th patient.
美国的人体冷冻机构发出了一份声明,称女孩的遗体已被送到,且“于10月25日下午5点,死亡约8天后,以干冰冻藏。”这是该机构冷冻的第144位患者。
Its minimum fee for cryopreservation is $28,000, according to its website, and The Times reported the cost to the girl's family was $46,000. The case was not reported on before Friday in keeping with the wishes of the teenager, who also asked that no one involved be identified.
根据该机构网站提供的信息,人体冷冻的最低费用是2.8万美元,而据《泰晤士报》报道,这个小女孩的家庭为此承担了4.6万美元。为了尊重女孩的愿望,此事件直到周五才见报,同时她也不希望媒体公开任何参与者的身份。
Jackson said his decision was based on the dispute between the girl's parents and the best outcome for the child's welfare, not on the science itself, in what he described as an unprecedented ruling.
杰克逊表示,他的裁决是在倾听了女孩父母的争论、考虑了孩子的利益后做出的,并不是基于这项技术本身,他认为这是一个史无前例的裁决。
"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," he said.
“毫无意外,这可能是英国唯一一封呈交法庭的此类申请,大概也是全世界唯一的”,他说。
"It is an example of the new questions that science poses to the law -- perhaps most of all to family law," Jackson added.
“科技的进步给法律体系提出了新问题,或许大部分是关于家庭法的,这就是一个例子。”杰克逊补充道。
The judge described the case as a "tragic combination" of childhood illness and family conflict, while praising the girl for the "valiant way" she approached the situation.
根据法官的描述,这个案例是少儿患病和家庭矛盾的“不幸结合”,但女孩在面对这种境遇时表现出的勇气十分令人钦佩。
In her letter to the judge, the 14-year-old wrote:
在呈交法官的信里,这个十四岁的小姑娘写道:
"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.
“我不想被埋在地下。我想活着,想活得久一些,我想未来他们或许会找到治愈这种癌症的法子,然后把我唤醒。”
"I want to have this chance. This is my wish."
“我想要这个机会。这就是我的愿望。”
The girl's solicitor, Zoe Fleetwood, said her client had called Jackson her "hero" after being told of the court's decision shortly before her death on October 17.
女孩的律师佐伊.弗利特伍德说,小女孩于10月17日去世了,死前不久她得知了法院的裁决,她觉得杰克逊是她的“英雄”。
"By October 6, the girl knew that her wishes were going to be followed. That gave her great comfort," she told BBC Radio 4. For the last eight years of her life the teenager had not had face-to-face contact with her father, who raised his concerns about the costs and consequences of his daughter being frozen.
“10月6号,小女孩得知她的愿望将实现。这给了她极大的安慰。”她告诉BBC广播四台。去世前的八年里,女孩都没有和父亲面对面交流过,这位父亲曾很担忧冷冻遗体的费用和可能造成的后果。
"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 was said to have told Jackson.
“假如200年以后她被治愈了,苏醒过来了,但她可能找不到任何亲戚,也可能失去了所有记忆。”据称父亲是这样对杰克逊说的。
The father's position however shifted during the case, saying that he respected his daughter's decision.
但他后来改变了看法,表示尊重女儿的选择。