Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Sister’s Keeper, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Bodily Autonomy
Siblinghood
Parenthood
Control
Illness and Isolation
Summary
Analysis
Anna muses about how, when one is a little kid, they are fluent in “Ifspeak.” This language, which people lose in adulthood, causes children to constantly ask about wild hypotheticals, such as getting bitten by a funnelweb spider where the only antivenom is locked up on the top of a mountain. Anna describes this as a “world of possibility,” since children are infinitely open-minded. However, Anna believes that adulthood causes people’s minds to close once again.
Anna’s musings about “Ifspeak” is essentially her conception of the loss of innocence, where children begin to lose their imaginative view of the world and see reality for what it is. Given her own upbringing, it’s implied that Anna is familiar with this closing of her mind as she grows older.
Themes
During the recess, Campbell brings Anna to a conference room to check in with her. She reflects on how she feels like a ghost due to everyone talking about her like she isn’t there. She confesses that before, she was sure she was doing the right thing, but seeing Sara on the stand has made her wonder what it would be like if she was the sick one and Kate was doing what she’s doing. She can’t answer this—a sign that she’s growing up. Campbell tells her not to give up, and she assures him that she’s not, but that even if they win, they lose. She thinks back to two twins she babysits and how sometimes she wants to warn them about growing up.
Anna putting herself in Kate’s place underscores just how serious the consequences of her petition are; after all, if she was sick, she would probably want Kate to do whatever she could to save her. However, the knowledge of these consequences do not cause Anna to abandon her battle, showing how she’s overcome her hesitation about her lawsuit, even though she knows that she won’t really enjoy victory even if she wins.
Themes
Back in court, Campbell calls Dr. Bergen. The doctor explains the premise of a medical ethics committee. In response to Campbell’s questions, the doctor states that the committee has convened twice for Kate, with the second meeting about her kidney donation due to the high risk to Kate. Campbell asks if the committee considered the risk to Anna, but Dr. Bergen claims she isn’t a patient. In response, Campbell pulls out Anna’s medical records, which outline her multiple procedures. Anna, watching, feels happy to see someone fighting for her. When Campbell asks if the ethics committee would have ruled against the procedure if they knew Anna didn’t consent, Dr. Bergen says that this is an unprecedented situation. Campbell points out that the ethics committee is meant to look at unprecedented situations, and Dr. Bergen concedes.
Campbell’s interrogation of Dr. Bergan illustrates just how severely the medical establishment has failed Anna in neglecting to examine the ethics of what she’s suffered on behalf of Kate. Campbell’s point that Anna has undergone multiple procedures in the hospital but is not considered a patient portrays the hospital as absurd and thoughtless. He further indicts the committee by suggesting that, in avoiding Anna’s situation because it was unique, they have abandoned the exact duties they’re supposed to fulfill. Anna’s joy at Campbell’s fierce advocacy emphasizes just how rare it is for someone to stick up for her like this.
Themes
Campbell asks Dr. Bergen straight-out if he believes it’s ethical for Anna to be asked to donate her body parts multiple times over her entire life. Dr. Bergen says that he voted against Kate’s procedure since he does not believe Kate would survive, hence subjecting Anna to an invasive procedure for nothing. However, up until this instance, he believes the benefits to the entire family outweighed the risks to Anna. Campbell then asks Dr. Bergen what he would do if he had to give up his car, a Porsche, to save Judge DeSalvo’s life, simply because a lawyer decided this was the case. The doctor scoffs at this, arguing that there are safeguards put into place to protect donor rights. Campbell asks how, in that case, Anna slipped through the cracks.
Although Dr. Bergen generally agrees with the Fitzgeralds’ decision to use Anna as a donor up to this point, the fact that even he disagrees with Kate’s procedure underscores the various risks to the transplant that Sara has refused to consider. Campbell’s hypothetical about Dr. Bergen’s car once again raises the question of how much someone should have to sacrifice to save someone else’s life—and a Porsche is certainly less of a sacrifice than one’s own organ.
Themes
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In a flashback to when Anna was just seven months old, the Fitzgeralds are at a block party. Anna is in a baby walker, moving between all the tables. Suddenly, she loses control of the wheels and goes veering past the road barricade towards traffic. Out of nowhere, Kate appears and grabs her just before she gets hit by a car. In the present day, people in the neighborhood still bring this story up. Anna remembers it as the moment Kate saved her life, even though it was also “the other way around.”
Kate’s rescue of Anna is clearly an impulsive act of sisterly protectiveness, not born of an ulterior motive—but even so, Anna is correct in stating that Kate was saving her own life by saving Anna’s. In this way, this flashback underscores just how intertwined Kate and Anna’s lives really are.
Themes
Sara comes up to question Dr. Bergen after Campbell. She asks him to outline the process of coming up with a plan of action for Kate’s treatment, then asks him if his report ever highlighted significant harm or risk to Anna. The answer is no. She then asks him if he has children, and he answers that he has a son. Then, she asks him if, in her position, he would question a course of action that would save his son’s life, or if he would simply do whatever it took. The doctor doesn’t answer; he doesn’t need to.
Sara’s questions to Dr. Bergen allow her to give her side of the story: that she’s never put Anna at significant medical risk, and everything she’s done was in order to save Kate. Where Campbell’s questions center Anna, hers once again bring the narrative of the case back to not only Kate, but Sara’s ceaseless efforts to save her.
Themes
Judge DeSalvo calls a second recess. Anna goes to follow Campbell out of the courtroom when she feels Sara tug down her t-shirt, which is riding up her back. Anna thinks about her mother’s disdain for girls who dress in skimpy clothes. Both Anna and Campbell stop. Sara, embarrassed, apologizes. Anna puts her hand over Sara’s, tucks in her shirt, and asks to meet up with Campbell in a minute. Campbell disapproves but leaves them alone. Anna kisses Sara on the cheek and tells her that she did great, because she doesn’t know how to say what she really means: that she’s constantly surprised by the people she loves.
Although Anna and Sara are on opposite sides in the courtroom, their interaction at the beginning of the recess shows that they still care for each other. Sara cannot resist giving into her maternal instincts in fixing Anna’s clothes, and Anna still looks up to her mother to the point that she feels the need to congratulate her performance in court. Interestingly, as the hearing proceeds, the animosity between the two of them seems to be fading somewhat.
Themes
