“Most babies are accidents. Not me. I was engineered. Born to save my sister's life.”
How often have we seen people giving up their lives to save another? How often have we considered sacrificing the quality of our lives to give ease to another? I know, some (if not most) of us would not do that, right? It might be an easy statement, but once we get into that situation, we might think twice, thrice, even a lot of times, before we end up with a decision.
In this movie, based on an award winning book by Jodi Picoult, the idea of stem-cell research for the treatment of a rare disease has been brought up. As a viewer, I was bothered by the question on how ethical it is to design a person in order to cure the disease of another. If this is permissible, are we allowed then to design a perfect human based on the traits we regard as perfect (e.g., disease-free, blond hair, blue eyes, fully immunocompetent, etc.)? Isn’t this already considered as a way of meddling with the processes of nature?
Unfortunately, these questions were not answered in the movie. The audience was left with the atmosphere of wonder and confusion. As for me, I was certain with my thoughts. Every human being has a right to life. If Kate (the sick sister) has one, Anna (the sister’s “keeper”) also has one, whether she was conceived naturally or not. When it’s a good thing to give the best to the palliation of a terminally ill patient, it is, on the other hand, a doubtful thing to consider degrading the life of a perfectly healthy person. What Sara (the mother) was doing was literally transferring almost all of Anna’s body parts to Kate, which might have led to two equally disabled sisters if her plan was continued. In the end, the love between the siblings prevailed when Sara was finally able to understand Kate’s decision to save her sister’s life by means of acceptance to death.
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