A person’s right to their body has been an issue often debated throughout human history. Some examples of body right struggles include body snatching, organ harvesting, legal kidnapping, and abortion. In a novel by Neal Shusterman entitled Unwind, the repurposing of human teenagers is decided by their parents or legal guardians. Unwind exemplifies how an individual’s “right” to their body is determined by others. Unwind exaggerates and expands the issues society faces today about body right issues, focusing on abortion and what an individual has claim on, or an individual’s right to make decisions about their body. Shusterman set the novel in the future, after a second civil war in America called “The Heartland War,” where there was a Pro-Life
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Since parents have so much control over their kids’ rights, it makes sense that kids can only be unwound starting in their rebellious, start-thinking-for-yourself years. Medically, it also works better, as the older the child, the more grown the organs are for adults that need them. Legally, medically, and logically, if unwinding had to take place, this is a prime age group. But emotionally and morally, the question isn’t what age would be “right,” but is unwinding right? Towards the end of the book, they lower the age of legal adulthood to 17, so when teens turn 17, they cannot be unwound anymore. Since the government did that in a time where people are beginning to question the ethics of unwinding, it will probably prompt more confusion or suspicion because that law highlights how the government is deciding the legal adult age, and saying it was wrong before to harvest 18 year olds. Essentially, the government has a large part in determining the rights people have. Supposedly the government is elected by the people, for the people, but it can become isolated in its own thoughts of business and politics, as can be gleaned from the rest of the book. For example, in the Heartland wars, the government didn’t pick a side; that seems good and feels like the government can be neutral, but that also shows how separate they are from the people. If the government were more involved with the people, the war probably wouldn’t have happened, and their stance on the pro-life/pro-choice topic was more a political one, so after the war, there would be less dispute over the governing
Since parents have so much control over their kids’ rights, it makes sense that kids can only be unwound starting in their rebellious, start-thinking-for-yourself years. Medically, it also works better, as the older the child, the more grown the organs are for adults that need them. Legally, medically, and logically, if unwinding had to take place, this is a prime age group. But emotionally and morally, the question isn’t what age would be “right,” but is unwinding right? Towards the end of the book, they lower the age of legal adulthood to 17, so when teens turn 17, they cannot be unwound anymore. Since the government did that in a time where people are beginning to question the ethics of unwinding, it will probably prompt more confusion or suspicion because that law highlights how the government is deciding the legal adult age, and saying it was wrong before to harvest 18 year olds. Essentially, the government has a large part in determining the rights people have. Supposedly the government is elected by the people, for the people, but it can become isolated in its own thoughts of business and politics, as can be gleaned from the rest of the book. For example, in the Heartland wars, the government didn’t pick a side; that seems good and feels like the government can be neutral, but that also shows how separate they are from the people. If the government were more involved with the people, the war probably wouldn’t have happened, and their stance on the pro-life/pro-choice topic was more a political one, so after the war, there would be less dispute over the governing