My Sister's Keeper Ethical Dilemma

My Sister’s Keeper is the story of the Fitzgerald family. Sara and Brian Fitzgerald had two children, Jesse and Kate. When Kate was only 2 years old, they learned that she had leukemia. They immediately started chemotherapy treatments for Kate; however, her doctor, Dr. Chance, suggested that she would eventually need bone marrow transplants from a donor that was related to her. Kate’s brother Jesse, who was only 4 years old at the time, was tested, but he was not a match and he could not help Kate. He felt guilty about this for the rest of his life. Needing a related donor, Sara and Brian decided to have another child. They scientifically conceived another daughter, Anna, to be a perfect match for Kate.

I believe the most important ethical …show more content…
Who is best to make decisions on Anna’s behalf concerning all of the painful procedures she undergoes. Is it her mother Sara, who is basically forcing her to undergo these procedures in order to keep Kate alive? Is it her father Brian, who understands her want for freedom and independence from these medical procedures? Or, is it Julia Romano, her guardian ad litem, whose job is to decide what is best for Anna? When Sara is the moral agent, the course of action is that Anna would have been forced to donate her kidney to Kate for a transplant and the outcome would have been that Anna was robbed of her autonomy and Kate would have been left unhappy, continuing to get sick and waiting to die. If Brian is the moral agent, the course of action would have been left up to Anna to make her own decision, and the outcome is unknown. When Julia is the moral agent, she fights for Anna’s decision to not donate her kidney and a trial is brought about. The Judge agrees with Anna and she becomes medically emancipated and her lawyer is given medical power of attorney over her. Later, when Anna is in a serious car accident and has serious, irreversible brain damage, the course of action becomes that her lawyer makes the decision to have her kidney donated to Kate and the outcome is that Anna dies and her family is left with that …show more content…
It just seems too unrealistic that she would die after the entire story was about keeping Kate alive. The irony in killing Anna off is too strong and it made me very angry and upset. I think that after the trial, Anna would keep her decision not to donate her kidney for Kate’s transplant and Kate would eventually pass away from her aggressive form of leukemia. That seems like the most realistic and fair ending. Kate did not want to be sick anymore and she was done waiting around to die. She wanted to die and put her family out of the constant stress and worry about her disease, so that is how I would have ended the story