Ethics, Morality, & Medicine in My Sister's Keeper
Ethics & Morality
Ethics, Morality, & Medicine in My Sister's Keeper
Ethics, Morality, & Medicine in My Sister's Keeper
Both ethics are morality of topics of philosophical discourse. Ethics is sometimes also referred to as moral philosophy. Moral philosophy or ethics may defend, recommend, and/or systematize behaviors that are right and wrong. Morality could be explained as the context within which ethics are codified. Morality is a code; it is the system that stratifies and codifies intentions, decisions, and actions, good (right) or bad (wrong). Ethics and morality are ever-present in the novel and film My Sister's Keeper. The ethics and morality of the Fitzgerald family as well as the ethics and morality of the lawyers (Campbell and Sara), and furthermore, the ethics of the hospital staff are at the center of the narrative. Arguably, the novel is the narrative of a family, each member operating upon individual morality and ethics; the plot stems from the tensions that play out among the family as a result of their differing senses of ethics and codes of morality. In this paper, close attention will be paid to the ethics and morality of the medicinal practices in the novel, specifically, the medical practices Anna endured, and attempt to describe the affects of ethics in medicine upon the characters Anna & Kate.
Anna's existence is ethically and morally questionable. The entire idea and concept of a savior sibling is questionable, too. One of the morals of this story is that sometimes, a person's life does not belong to that person. Anna's parents conceived her to help Kate live. Anna's primary function is to be an extension of life support for Kate. Anna does not live for her own sake; Anna lives for the sake of her sister. If Kate had never contracted leukemia, it is dubious as to whether Anna would have existed at all. What are the ethics and morality of the decision by the Fitzgerald parents to conceive another child primarily for the sake of another? This question is not fully addressed by the novel, yet it is a question the novel raises directly and indirectly. How is Anna wrong to litigate against her parents for the power of medical attorney over her own body? It is believed in western culture that children do not choose to be born. If children do not choose to be born, it is far more unlikely that children would choose, if they could, not only to be born, but also to be born and live only in service to another sibling. It is possible that at least some children would make that choice, yet it is highly unlikely. Therefore, Anna did not choose to be born. Anna, further, did not choose to live to supply her sister, Kate, with various bodily tissues and organs to sustain her. Kate did not choose to get leukemia. Who is "right" and who is "wrong"? The answers depend on the situation as well as the ethical and moral perspective of the reader as My Sister's Keeper is a dynamic, layered text that asks many questions and answers only some of them.
The experience of a medical trauma such as a serious or fatal disease like leukemia is traumatic. This is Kate's trauma. It is also traumatic to experience constant medical testing. Medical testing can be painful, awkward, anxiety-inducing, and seemingly endless. This is Anna's trauma. That is a bond the sisters share -- besides sharing a kidney, as they do after Anna dies in the car accident near the close of the novel. Kate must endure medical tests because of her pre-existing medical condition, leukemia. Because Anna is a savior sibling, she must endure numerous tests for her fluids, tissues, and organs to help Kate stay alive and perhaps make her leukemia go into remission. Where and what were the ethics that made Anna be subjected to so many tests? The ethics in that case are consistent with the ethics that support savior siblings. If a family believes in bringing another life into the world to help one life in this world keep going, then that same family will likely experience hesitation in subjecting that new life to the tests required to extract whatever materials necessary to keep that other life going. There is a "proverb" within the world of team sports: "Go hard or go home." The parents who went through all the time and trouble to get pregnant and birth a child for the sake of another better have the follow through to do the tests necessary to see if the new baby is a compatible donor for the older child, or else, why have the child at all? That...
MY SISTER�S KEEPER 1 MY SISTER�S KEEPER 5 My Sister�s Keeper: An Ethical Perspective X. Ample zzzzz Ethical Issue: Genetic Technology in Healthcare �I was born because a scientist managed to hook up my mother�s eggs and my father�s sperm to create a specific combination of precious genetic material...because I could save my sister, Kate,� (Picoult, 2004, p. 7-8). Anna, the protagonist of Jodi Picoult�s novel My Sister�s Keeper bemoans her special status when she first introduces herself
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