Would You Want to Be Frozen Until You Could Be Cured?

According to a special on ABC-TV this week, there is a place in the United States where, for a price of $70,000, you can have your body cryogenically frozen when you die. They drain the body of blood and all other fluids, and replace them with a special chemical that, when frozen, can preserve your body forever. Then, when a cure is discovered for whatever affliction caused your death, you can be "thawed out", cured, and live again. If you had the money, would you do this? The family of baseball great Ted Williams did. And there are many people who have already paid their $70,000 so that, when they die, their bodies will be preserved in this way.

Before you answer "sure, why not!", think carefully about this. If you died of a disease which disfigured you, disabled you, or otherwise changed you from how you were while still healthy, would you want to wake up in that state? Wouldn't you want to stipulate that, in addition to being cured, you must be restored to the beautiful-looking person you were before cancer emaciated you, caused your limbs or breasts to be removed, or robbed you of your youthful healthy glow? Wouldn't you want to be able to walk and talk, think rationally, and eat again as you did before that neurological illness took those abililties away? How about that auto accident that messed up your body, or that extra weight that raised your blood-pressure so high that you had that stroke that finally killed you?

And how long would you be willing to be frozen? Is there a point when you would just as soon be buried and never woken? Twenty or thirty years is reasonable; there would be people who would remember you, and may be willing to take you back into the family. Your children might be gone, or still frozen, but your grandkids might be happy to have Grandpa back. Or would they? Would you want to re-enter a world where you no longer know anyone, where nobody loves you anymore? What if they woke you 100, 200, 500 years later? Would you find your great-great-great.......etc. grandchiildren? Would they want you?