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
Campbell delivers his closing statement. He argues that the case is not really about bodily autonomy or medical emancipation, but about Anna herself, who is on the cusp of becoming her own person and deserves the chance to find out who she’s going to become—and he thinks she’s going to be amazing. He admits that the Fitzgeralds have been put in an impossible position, but he asserts that, in such impossible situations, the person whose bodily autonomy is at stake deserves to have the final say. He reminds the court that Anna’s motivations for filing her suit were not selfish or shallow. He speculates that Anna might end up donating her kidney after all, but that what he—or anyone else—thinks is irrelevant, because Anna’s voice is the only one that matters.
In delivering his closing statement, Campbell decides not to focus on cold issues such as logic or legality, but the emotional core of the case, which is Anna’s wants and needs. The case itself has become complicated by the ambiguous ethics surrounding Anna and Kate’s respective medical treatments; thus, the strength in Campbell’s rhetoric is that he simplifies it by acknowledging that there is no good answer—then, therefore, the answer should be left to Anna, since she is the one who has to sacrifice something if the transplant moves forward.
Themes
During a recess, Campbell takes Judge for a walk in a little bit of greenspace by the courthouse. A little boy runs up to them, excited to pet Judge before he’s pulled back by his mother. She asks if they can pet him, and Campbell explains that Judge is a service dog. When the woman points out that he’s not blind, he considers telling the truth, but decides there’s value in laughing at himself. Instead, he tells the woman that he’s a lawyer and that Judge chases ambulances for him.
Campbell still refuses to divulge his condition to strangers—but rather than out of shame, he now does it in order to keep his sense of humor about his condition. In this way, although Campbell has learned to be more vulnerable with those that he cares about, this scene also serves as a reminder that he has a right to agency and privacy when it comes to his health.
Themes
Court reconvenes for Judge DeSalvo to give his verdict. He muses about how Kate’s livelihood and Anna’s quality of life have been inextricably intertwined. He talks briefly about his late daughter and how his loss has made him deeply compassionate to Sara and Brian’s plight, but that, as both attorneys have pointed out, this case is about navigating complex ethical decisions. He declares that, given Kate’s predicament of wanting to live but not wanting to suffer, Anna is the only one in a position to make a decision about it. He states that the premise behind emancipation is simple: you don’t take something without asking. With that, he grants Anna medical emancipation and asks Campbell to be her medical power of attorney, which Campbell happily accepts. As court adjourns, Anna finds herself faced with her parents, who embrace her in a hug.
Much like Campbell’s closing statement, Judge DeSalvo’s verdict in Anna’s favor cuts through the ethical complications of the case in order to focus primarily on Anna’s wellbeing. As he points out, even though nobody in the Fitzgerald family is capable of making a fully unbiased decision, Anna’s closeness with Kate as well as the stakes she has in giving up her kidney means she is the one most equipped to answer the question of what to do. His statement that no one should take something without asking emphasizes the importance of Anna’s right to bodily autonomy, regardless of other ethical concerns.
Themes
