Legal and Ethical Issues
Running head: LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN MY SISTER’S KEEPER Legal and Ethical Issues in My Sister’s Keeper Detra Smith Med 149: Medical Ethics Abstract In this paper I am going to identify some the legal and ethical issues in My Sister’s Keeper. Some of those issues include emancipation of a minor, genetic engineering, and limited termination of parental rights. I will be giving my opinion on these matters also. My Sister’s Keeper is about a family who conceives a child strictly for the use as bone marrow donor for her gravely ill older sister.
Kate is diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia at the age of two. As their doctor tells them of their options, he asks Sara and Brian, the parents, have they thought about having another child who would be a “match” for Kate. The doctor goes on to tell them that he is not legally supposed to tell them about this option. He tells them that they could “design” their child so she would match Kate, since none of the other family members are a match and it would probably be years before a match would be found on the transplant list. So Anna is created.
Genetic engineering is the manipulation of DNA within the cells of plants and animals, through synthesis, alteration, or repair, to ensure that certain harmful traits will be eliminated in offspring and that desirable traits will appear and be passed on. From the time Anna was born, she was poked and prodded for stems cells and bone marrow. As she gets older she realizes what is going to eventually happen to her and why her parents “brought” her into this world, when they had so much more to deal with. She doesn’t come to this conclusion on her own, Kate has a hand in helping Anna figure it, even though she is a very smart child.
I am not in favor of genetically engineering children. I find it ethically wrong. You are going against God’s will. God has planned all of us even before conception. That’s my belief and what I have been taught. In the movie this idea takes Sara and Brian by surprise, but Sara quickly says lets do it. She had one thing on her mind and that was save her child. She left her morals at home on the kitchen table that day and kept leaving them behind. In this movie, it seemed that the mother is putting one child’s quality of life over the other children. Jesse is being neglected because he has a selfish mother.
He is just a shadow that sulks and creeps throughout the house and the city. As parents how they can they do that. I know that when you are dealing with a seriously ill family member, some things do get neglected or put on the back burner. But that thing should not be your child. Sara and Brian did not even realize that Jesse was suffering with dyslexia. Anna and Kate have came up with a bunch of reasons as to why Anna wants to be emancipated. At the age of eleven, Anna and her older brother, Jesse, go hire a lawyer to sue their parents for the rights to Anna’s body.
The lawyer takes the case because he knows what it is like to live a life where you have no control of your body. The lawyer suffers from epilepsy. Anna wants to become a medically emancipated minor. The courts had never heard of such a case and there is no such term as medically emancipated, legally defined. With Anna becoming medically emancipated, it means that Sara and Brian’s parental rights have been terminated within limits. They still had to provide shelter, food, clothing, and other basics, but they could not tell her what to do medically.
In my opinion, an eleven year old is not responsible enough to be medically emancipated. Yes, in this case Anna was very smart for her age, but she had to be pushed into this by Kate. Anna was not mature enough to handle this situation. An eleven year old has no idea of the ramifications that can come about with this. All they see is that they are not under their parents rules and guidelines. In conclusion, I am grateful for the advances that are being made in health care technology. But at times I feel that the technology is getting the better of us.
It is almost like the researchers are playing God. I do not agree with cloning or genetically engineering. I do agree with stem cells research and all of the good that can be done with stem cells. If my family would have had that knowledge 19 years ago maybe my grandfather would still be here. He died from multiple strokes in 1990. References Judson, K. , & Harrison, C. Law & Ethics for Medical Careers 5th Edition. Pacheco, Chuck (Producer), & Cassavetes, Nick (Director). (2009). My Sister’s Keeper. [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Bros.
