11 Year Old Girl Sues Her Parents For Stealing Her Organs

In "My Sister's Keeper," Anna Fitzgerald is a young girl who was genetically engineered to be a perfect match for her older sister, Kate, who has leukemia. When Anna decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation and the right to make her own decisions about her body, it sets off a chain of events that challenges the bonds of family and the meaning of love.

[lukerosales]

I love how Anna was willing to sacrifice herself for Kate, but once Kate tells her to stop, Anna realises that she's more than just spare parts for Kate.

[elinfelicia]

How is this not illegal? The mother, as a lawyer, was literally guilt shaming her daughter in the court about literally cutting herself open to permanently disable her by giving up her organ to her dying sister. How did the judge not instantly go, “hold up, ya’ll going to jail”

[aleshiatorres]

Their mother is absolutely horrible. To both of them. She's so selfish she makes her dying daughter comfort her while using her other daughter as an organ donor.

[KarlPHorse]

As beautiful as this movie is, I feel like it doesn't do a good enough job expressing how evil and psychotic this is. The mom is portrayed as just being misguided, when in reality she is abusive and disgusting.

[mullerpotgieter]

Saviour siblings. A real thing where humans are treated as glorified cattle

[breadcrumbhoarder]

This situation is more common than y’all might think. It’s not uncommon for siblings of children with leukemia to have to do bone marrow transplants, a painful and terrifying procedure, only for their parents to ignore them or barely give them any credit because they’re too focused on the sick child. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to become an art therapist, I wanna work in hospitals with the whole family.

[michaelmurphy]

Any Doctor who would even suggest a spare parts donor child is unethical and should be disbarred as a doctor.

[AchillesOnYT]

Surprisingly (or not), "savior siblings" are legal to "create" in the UK but not in Canada, Switzerland and the USA.
How it can be legal ANYWHERE is disgusting.

[flamelily]

I watched this movie, it was heartbreaking. The ironic thing was that Kate was tired of fighting the cancer and didn't want Anna's kidney. She supported Anna's fight to have the right over her own body.

[maniaemagna]

This is why bodily autonomy laws for children are needed.

[ugan]

Honestly the mother pissed me off the most in this film. Like seriously, she put on the backburner her son's learning disability (I heard in the book he was more wild and did some desperate things to just get his dad's attention), ignored her youngest's mental and physical health and then had the gall to get angry when she didn't want to be a human pin cushion (seriously, I remember even the dad starting to understand why Anna was doing this and she got pisses at him), and then she completely ignored what Kate really wanted.

I get the idea was her being a mother desperate to save her child, but how she was okay with sacrificing her other two (and then expecting them to just be okay with that) always pissed me off.

Also the doctor who suggested the whole thing also pissed me off.

Like I remember when he was being questioned, Anna's lawyer asked if what she went through benefited Anna.

Doctor responded saying: "she got to help her sister"

Thanks for reinforcing the fact that Anna was basically spare parts for Kate and nothing else.

[BigBeezyBtown]

I did a 10 page essay on this in College. There was one couple that had over 20 abortions until they finally conceived a doner match. I think it was over 30, but I can't remember, so we'll go with 20. The hardest part, is it takes a while before the test can occur, so the baby is fairly far along when the abortion happens. I don't care to recall the rest of it. The entire essay was full of horror stories.

[LeenaOSullivan]

Wait so terminating a pregnancy is a crime, but organ harvesting is legal?!

[michellecrocker]

What I never understood is how Anna’s Plight never set off any child protection issues with the school? Like, all those absences due to having to donate to her older sister, HAD to have counted as child abuse or endangering. If I had been Anna´s teacher, I’d have called cps on these parents to look into it

[JP-jmfy]

Sad story. On the one hand I can understand a mothers need and desire to do what ever she can to save her daughter. What I can’t get behind is doing it at the expense of another regardless of it being a sibling or a complete stranger.

[kitkakitteh]

Children can’t sell anything to a pawn shop. But parents can use their children for parts.

[mask]

This whole “savior sibling”/“donor child” practice should be outlawed completely. Giving birth to a kid only so you can use them as an organ bank for your other kid and ruining the kids life with endless surgeries, no time to be a kid, constantly being forced to risk their own life for an older sibling who’s clearly not going to get better, and uncaring parents is inhumane and disgusting. I’m honestly shocked that this hasn’t been fully outlawed yet.

[shelbyrogers]

Better ending than the book. My gosh the book ending is so traumatic having Anna get in a car accident with her lawyer and dies after winning the court case. So in the end Kate gets Anna’s kidney anyways and she beats her cancer and lives.

[CJSmallz]

I could never do something like this. You don't have a kid just to be a donor for another one of your kids. It seems so cruel

[girl]

The only thing I can say about this whole movie is that Kate was the only one protecting Anna.
When Anna's lawyer asked her mother the question of who sticks up for Anna, she couldn't answer, which is all the proof I needed to understand how little she cares. Kate wanted to die so she could stop hurting, and so Anna wouldn't be used like that anymore.