Designer Baby

The narrator, Campbell, is a lawyer. He has been asked for legal advice by thirteen-year-old Anna.

"They had me so that I could save Kate," the girl explains. "They went to special doctors and everything, and picked the embryo that would be a perfect genetic match."

There had been ethics courses in law school, but I usually skipped them. Still, anyone who tuned in periodically to CNN would know about the controversies of stem cell research. Spare-parts babies, designer infants, the science of tomorrow to save the children of today.

I tap my pen on the desk, and Judge—my dog—sidles closer. "What happens if you don't give your sister a kidney ?"

"She'll die."

"And you're okay with that?"

Anna's mouth sets in a thin line. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are. I'm just trying to figure out what made you want to put your foot down, after all this time."

She looks over at the bookshelf. "Because," she says simply, "it never stops."

Suddenly, something seems to jog her memory. She reaches into her pocket and puts a wad of crumpled bills and change onto my desk. "You don't have to worry about getting paid, either. That's $136.87. I know it's not enough, but I'll figure out a way to get more."

It's not that I'm a particularly charitable man, but rather that legally, this case is a lock: she doesn't want to give a kidney; no court in its right mind would force her to give up a kidney; I don't have to do any legal research; the parents will cave in before we go to trial, and that will be that. Plus, the case will generate a ton of publicity for me, and will jack up my pro bono for the whole damn decade. "I'm going to file a petition for you in family court: legal emancipation for medical purposes," I say.

"Then what?"

"There will be a hearing, and the judge will appoint a guardian ad litem , which is—"

"—a person trained to work with kids in the family court, who determines what's in the child's best interests," Anna recites. "Or in other words, just another grown-up deciding what happens to me."

Jodi PICOULT, My Sister’s Keeper (2004)

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