My Sister's Keeper

When I was in fifth grade, I knew of a girl at my school who had leukemia. She passed away early in the fall of that school year, and although I never knew her, her life and death left an impact on my young heart. Later on that year, I did a lot of research and then wrote a story inspired by and in memory of Evelyn. What would it be like, I wondered, to be so young and dealing with a life-threatening disease and chemotherapy treatments and knowing you might die soon, rather than worrying about boys and your grade in science and slumber parties?

My Sister’s Keeper, the novel (and upcoming film) imagined by Jodi Piccoult, explores this idea and others—such as how childhood illness can influence family dynamics—through use of multiple view-points and flashbacks. I recently finished this provocative page-turner, and I think that Piccoult succeeds in immersing her readers in the world the Fitzgeralds live in: one that is in constant flux, depending on the health of their eldest daughter, Kate. Kate is sixteen and suffers from acute promyelocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Kate’s mother, Sarah is single-mindedly concerned with saving Kate—at times to a fault—and she has done and will do whatever it takes to help her child fight cancer.

Kate’s siblings lives have been drastically affected by their sister’s illness: her older brother Jesse is a lost child, a trouble-maker addicted to starting small fires who is always on the verge of doing irreparable damage. Thirteen-year-old Anna was a “designer baby,” genetically engineered by her parents (and their doctor) to be a bone marrow match for her older sister. Since the day she was born, Anna has undergone multiple medical procedures for Kate’s benefit.

Yet as she’s grown older, Anna has come to realize just how much her identity is intertwined in her sister’s: “I’m not sick, but I might as well be. . . . The only reason I was born was as a harvest crop for Kate. . . . Even now, a major decision about me is being made, and no one’s bother’s to ask the one person who most deserves it to speak her opinion” (Piccoult 18-19). As of late, Anna has been told that she will be donating a kidney to Kate.

Consequently, in a much-deliberated act that could be seen as desperation, Anna files a lawsuit against her family for the rights to her body—a “Petition for Medical Emancipation.” If Anna wins her suit, she will be able to decide if she should or should not donate her kidney to her sister. This is the crux of Piccoult’s story, the conflict on which her novel turns.

Imagine what it would be like feel as if you had no control over decisions made about your body. How might your self-understanding be effected if you were only defined in terms of the people you to which you were related?

It seems as though the greater problem here is not that next surgery Anna will be told to undergo for Kate, but the sheer weight and meaning of Anna’s life. She has always lived under the shadow of her sister’s illness, her sense of self and purpose is to be her sister’s keeper. Anna is only thirteen, but she’s saved her sister’s life multiple times; and although that is a beautiful thing, it still begs the question: is it permissible to genetically design and give life to a child in order to save a family member’s life? What do you think? Is that something you’d do if you had no other choice? What are the consequences of such a choice?


Find out what happens to the Fitzgeralds by reading (or watching) My Sister’s Keeper. . .