Von Hermann Siegels
To cut the explanation short: Anna is the perfect version of her sister while she’s severely ill. To save her, Anna is required to donate parts of herself in ordert o save her sister Kate since she’s in a state where only exact copies of her organs in a healthy state would work. All of this madness is the work of her parents, specifically her mother, Sara. Anna isn’t taking it anymore and has filed a lawsuit with the help of renowned LawyerCampbell Alexander to stop her mother from forcing her to donate herself to her sister. „This lawsuit isn’t about donating a kidney.“ is a qoute from her mother giving her opinion on the lawsuit and she’s absolutely correct: This isn’t about donating a kidney. It’s a decision on who lives and who perishes because of the other. Anna lives in a world where she has a purpose unlike anyone else. It gives her a special role to play without asking her if she would even take it. Wanting to live for the sake of living is a natural force that everyone posesses no matter who they are. Now imagine you are told that you will give yourself away to die in order to save your body with another person in it but at the point of deceasing. Her mother just wanted Kate to live: But creating life for the purpose of destroying it to save the other is usually morally wrong in any other situation but the current one. You can’t really say her mother was selfish for doing what she has done since the only other option was to let Kate die. Taking risks is human after all. That lawsuit isn’t about donating a kidney: It’s about deciding our true morals regarding creating life. It’s a choice where no answer can ever truly be correct. Both sides can be justified in some sort of twisted way: Siding with Anna is to side with life and to side with Kate and her parents is to side with technological advancement and the decreasing necessity of morals and nature. The choice is yours to make.
Using Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis to create Savior Siblings
Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is one of the best procedures to diagnose any sort of genetic defects or chromosomal issues within embryos. Besides sorting the genetic issues, the process further allows you to diagnose and determine the embryo’s quality during its developmental stages. The primary goal is to distinguish those embryos that are reproductively competent and are capable of producing a healthy child from those that cannot. Due to the advancement of medical technology, saviour siblings, as a further use of PGD, transformed from a mere idea to a feasible alternative in 2000 when the first baby, Adam Nash, was engineered or designed to save his older sister from a rare form of anaemia. When Adam was born a stem cell transplantation was done immediately and infused into his sisters Molly’s circulatory system. Molly showed improvement in 4 weeks and in three years her immune system was normal.
Do saviour children have rights?
The 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald coined headlines of all kind of newspapers worldwide over the last weeks by suing her parents to fight for her rights. She was genetically created to save her from cancer suffering sister Kate Fitzgerald. Anna endured the pain her whole life that comes with the for Kate life-saving donations. She doesn’t want to aid with this anymore, since the next donation could be life-changing and has fatal potential. That’s why Anna sues her parents in cooperation with the celebrity lawyer Campbell Alexander. In court, they’re fighting for Anna’s right to decide over her own body. In legal terms, this is called medical emancipation.
The treatment options of APL
Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a unique subtype of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). It is caused by a gene rearrangement concerning the 15 and 17 chromosomes, leading to the formation of an abnormal fusion gene called PML/RARα. This gene produces immature white blood cells, and therefore a bone marrow transplant is needed to provide healthy leukocytes.
Interview with the parents of Kate about the lawsuit
Anna Fitzgerald is a savior sibling specifically born to aid her sister Kate who suffers from leukaemia. After the young Anna decided to sue her parent over the right to her own body, we decided to speak with the parents of Anna and hear out their opinion.
Interview with Kate Fitzgerald
Yesterday morning I had the chance to ask a few questions to Kate Fitzgerald, who suffers from Leukemia. As the sister of Anna, a savior sibling, she has got some interesting point of views regarding different topics, for instance the relationship with her parents. The following interview will prove that Kate has a breathtaking mindset and a heart of gold.
Creating human life just to destroy it?
A savior sibling refers to the creation of a genetically matched human being, in order to be the savior of a sick child in need of a donor. This requires creating human embryos in vitro, which literally means “in glass”, using the egg from the mother and fertilizing the egg with the father’s sperm. Then, using pre-implantation technology, the embryos are tested, and the one who is genetically compatible is implanted into the mother’s womb where the embryo can grow and develop. As soon as that baby is born, the cord blood is often collected because it matches perfectly for the sick sibling. In the embryos further development, bone marrow, blood, or even organs, can also be taken and used for transplantation for the affected sibling. The consequences on the new born and created child are controversial and seen from multiple different perspectives, as the case of the Fitzgerald family shows.