Deep Analysis Of The Moral Dilemmas



Deep Analysis Of The Moral Dilemmas

In May of 2004, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that five families in the United States had used genetically-selective in-vitro fertilization to create embryos that would act as perfect-match donors for older siblings with serious medical conditions such as leukemia. Immediately after birth, blood from the umbilical cords of the children was donated in the expectation that this would be enough to cure each of their older siblings' illnesses. Regardless of intention, the implications of these “designer babies” were enormous. Katherine Arnie of the Washington Post asks, “Is the deliberate selection of an embryo as a tissue match for a terminally ill child ethical? How would a child feel, knowing he was conceived for the sole purpose of saving his sibling's life? What would happen if the ailing sibling required future medical treatments or transplants? Where would a donor's own rights begin and his responsibility end?” (Aulisio 2003)

Jodi Picoult responded to these questions with My Sister's Keeper, the story of 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald, who was born to save her older sister Kate's life. Although Anna was only intended to donate blood from the umbilical cord after her birth, Kate was not fully healed, thus requiring further treatments involving Anna throughout her life. After numerous bone marrow transplants and blood transfusions, Anna is told that she needs to donate a kidney, but, unlike in the past, this time she isn't going to be so compliant. Bound to a life dictated by the needs of her sister and weary of the endless medical procedures intended to benefit not

Anna, but Kate, Anna decides to sue her parents, Sara and Brian Fitzgerald, for medical emancipation, or the rights to her own body. Sarbin once said that “human beings think, perceive, imagine, and make moral choices according to narrative structures.” In My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult examines current moral issues, transforming them into characters, situations, and settings to which her readers can relate. It is a story woven with lessons from which we all can learn. In most aspects, Anna Fitzgerald is your typical teenage girl. Caught in the excitement of boys and music, school and appearance, she gossips with her sister and dreams about her future. But her life is not entirely her own. She has been living a shared existence with Kate. At a time when most adolescents are caught in the throws of “storm and stress,” of defining who they are and molding an identity from the sands of time, Anna is not seeking for a purpose; rather, she is seeking an alternative. Picoult identifies one of the fundamental dangers in this new world of “designer babies,” capturing the inevitable need for autonomy in a child whose very creation was based on the life of another. In the context of My Sister's Keeper, Anna looks to redefine the predetermined identity she has been unable to question—until now. Although Anna is taking that necessary ultimate step away from parental ...