Dr Kate Falconer writes for The Conversation
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In recent weeks, Southern Cryonics – the southern hemisphere’s only cryopreservation facility, located in rural New South Wales – announced it had successfully cryopreserved its first patient.
There are only a handful of cryopreservation facilities across the globe – two in the United States, and one each in Russia, China, Australia and Switzerland. If the claims made on their websites and in the press are accurate, these facilities likely have no more than 600 patients in cryonic storage in total.
Media reports however suggest interest in cryopreservation has risen since the onset of the COVID pandemic, and thousands of people around the world have signed up to be cryopreserved after their death.
So, what is cryopreservation and what are its legal ramifications?
