Who owns you?

For the first time in my life I decided to buy a book immediately after reading its review. As evident the storyline was so compelling that I could not hold myself back and immediately rang the bookstore to reserve a copy for me. My sister’s keeper has a storyline that is not only unique but touches a sensitive chord deep down somewhere in almost everyone who has a family. Some of you may have read the long back released book (2004) or seen the film (2007), so I will not elaborate any contents here but the book triggered such a forceful thought process that I have to pen down my own reflections.

How much of rights does one have over one’s offspring? How much of obligation does one have towards one family and more specifically siblings? Even in a Western society, where dominance of parents is much lower when compared to restricted Asia, child can be forced, albeit under very special and extraordinary circumstances to be a lifelong slave donating blood and body to save a dying kin. After kid gets some senses and begins searching for own identity, it is unable to separate its existence apart from being reduced to a savior of its sibling

The brilliantly crafted storyline does raise many wicked questions which have no answer. It is no secret that parents have a bias towards the weaker child which at times is seen as ignoring the better one. However the pertinent question raised here is of control than any undue favor. Do parents have a moral right over the child that they can dictate the way child lives? True that children owe their existence to parents but are there any boundaries that define the limit after which child is free to live his or her life. Don’t get me wrong for I know parents have the best of intention for all their children and even in this book they did the best possible for all three, but to save a dying child they had to specifically conceive another one who would act as a life long donor, only that life saving kid rebelled after growing up putting all in a moral quandary

It is true that parents have created us and given us boundless love; it is also true that they love us more than any wealth or fame and would selflessly stand by us fighting against the whole world but it is also true that all human beings have their own identity which no one can deny to them. No one owns anyone, neither mind nor body; its own attitude, ability and destiny which decides who gets what.

Consider this: will you give your kidney to save a close kin? Almost all of you will. Will you give your life if it could save someone you value? Some of you will. But are any of you willing to erase all your lived life and give up all your thoughts, actions and identity for any one? Think hard before answering