The instrumentalization of the human being, even before becoming one: a review of the novel My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult

Abstract

Bioethics, as the practical ethics applied to the study of life sciences, is a transdisciplinary knowledge. As a matter of fact, it is able to join in a single reflection experts from various fields, including the medical one. Within medicine, assisted reproductive technologies emerge as a fertile ground of ethical issues, of which health professionals, lawyers, politicians and general population are increasingly aware. The global perception of these questions arises in various ways, being literature the most traditional, whereas the media and the cinema are in fact the most popular. This paper aims to emphasize the importance of literature in bioethics, through the analysis of a specific literary work: My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. This novel tells the story of a child born through the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, with the aim of being genetically matched with a sister carrier of a serious illness. Within the narrative, we analyze the ethical issues, but also medical, familiar, social and even legal issues that this practice, authorized by the Portuguese law, may raise. We can conclude then that literature is actually an excellent way of developing an ethical reflection. Moreover, in areas such as assisted reproduction, a medical doctor must have ethical, social and human skills that go far beyond scientific knowledge and technical competence.