Rant?-Your Child’s Keeper
This is a tough one. But not that tough.
Last summer I read My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Piccoult. If you haven’t read it, it is good and I recommend it. It is also being made into a movie with Cameron Diaz and Dakota Fanning. I won’t spoil the whole plot, but it begins with Anna, a young girl, going to an attorney’s office wanting medical emancipation from her parents. Her older sister Kate has a form of leukemia and needs a new kidney and Anna’s parents are forcing her to donate a kidney to her sister. Anna was genetically engineered to be a perfect match for her sister. Since infancy, Anna has donated everything from cord blood to multiple bone marrow transplants. It was never ending. The mother didn’t want Kate to die and was willing to do anything for her–even if that meant having one more child in order to keep the other alive. Piccoult drives home the question of how far is too far. But this is just a novel.
Think again. The other day in our local paper, Betsy Cliff wrote an article about the genetic screening of embryos. I was shocked to read that this scenario is not just in a novel, but really happened. Geneticist Mark Houghes recounts that a man came to him wanting to harvest a match for his daughter who was terminally ill. Cliff writes that Houghes and his colleagues wanted to do the best for the patient, but who exactly was the patient in this case? They were finally convinced to harvest the embryo for the family. The father’s argument was, “What’s the matter with us having a child who we’re going to love who also has the miraculous power to help one of our other children?” Hughes response to this ethical dilemma was that people have children for a number of reasons, not all of them noble.
As a mother of an only child I would of course go to nearly any length to save her. I do not say this lightly. But turning the tables, I could not sit back and allow my child to be an organ, blood, bone marrow harvester. I would be giving her life a purpose…a purpose that is not mine to give. I would call my self very open minded and extremely liberal BUT, as difficult and tragic this whole situation is, I feel there is only one answer to genetic screening for this purpose.
What do you think?
I’ve gone through enough things in my life that I think I wouldn’t know how I would respond until I were in that situation. Too many times I think I know or I can tell, and then something happens and my reaction isn’t even close to what I thought it would be. I shudder at the thought of making a decision such as this one. Loved this book… I was downright angry at the ending, felt totally sucker-punched. Have you read her newest one yet? It looks good!
This would be one of the worst decisions in the world to have to make. I think the movie will be so emotional that I am not sure if I can watch it! Haven’t read the new book yet, but have read all of her others. Let me know how it is if you read it!
Hey CHels! I finally had some extra time today (mom has Jas for the day and little guy is napping!) So I was catching up on your blog…FUN by the way!! Anyway, to comment on this discussion like 2 months later….have you seen the movie? If so, message me your thoughts. I saw it and don’t want to tell you my thoughts in case you haven’t seen it. Anyway, I feel I related somewhat to the mother in this story in that I would go to the ends of the earth to help my child(ren). I only had one child when I read the book, but now, as a mother of 2, I couldn’t do it. I cannot even imagine the painfulness of wrestling with an issue like that, but I know that I love my second child too much to put him into that situation. Obviously, not being in the situation I can’t say with 100% certainty but as I watched the movie as a mother of 2, I felt my heart absolutely breaking for the other two children….the sister Anna, thrust into the middle of the drama as well as the son Jesse, totally left out in the cold and forgotten b/c he ISN’T part of the drama. Such a sad and heart wrenching decision with so many consequences!!
As for the newest book…I read it and would love to discuss that one too if you’ve read it and when you get the chance. I must say (giving nothing away) I DO NOT relate to the mother in this story like I do in so many of her others!