Thought for the Day, 25 June 2009

The Rev. Dr Giles Fraser

Tomorrow, the film My Sister's Keeper goes on general release. Based on the novel by Jodi Picoult, it tells the tragic story of Kate, a young girl with leukaemia, and her little sister Anna, who was brought into the world by her parents using IVF, expressly to be a genetic match and thus an organ donor, for her sick older sister. Throughout her life, Anna donates blood and bone marrow to keep her big sister alive. I say donates, but that makes it sound as if she has much say in the matter. In reality, her parents are using her to keep her sister alive. But when Anna reaches 13, and her older sister needs one of her kidneys, Anna rebels, going to court to seek freedom from her parent's demands upon her. The title of the film is, of course, is a reference to Genesis chapter 9: "And the Lord said unto Cain, where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?" I wont say how the film ends. But what is being suggested here is that Anna is simply being used instrumentally, a means of growing organs to keep her sister alive. In effect, that she is a human farm for body parts.

To set against this suspicion, I want to speak not of Hollywood, but of real life. Earlier this week the Human Tissue Authority released figures showing that over the last couple of years 22 people have donated kidneys to total strangers. The director of policy at the HTA, Vicki Chapman, rightly described their behaviour as 'altruistic'. Altruistic indeed. For giving up one of your kidneys is a risky business and can have an adverse effect on your health. And yet, some people do it for others they have never even met. And that's just astonishing and wonderful and brilliant. These people deserve huge admiration.

Love seeks not its own interest, says St Paul. It's a teaching that's at the very heart of the Christian faith. To transfer the centre of interest in your life outside of your own narrow self-absorption is, I believe, precisely what it is to achieve salvation. Yet there are some who remain resolutely suspicious of all acts of human altruism, wanting instead always to find an ulterior motive or some emotional inadequacy from which they perceive such acts to emanate. This suspicion itself proceeds from the assumption that human beings are so fundamentally selfish that sacrifice for others is something unnatural. Selfish genes look after themselves.

Now, I've no idea whether these 22 good people are religious or not - and, to me, it matters not. What really matters is that they show the rest of us the reality of altruism and thus challenge us to live more for others than for ourselves. And so it's not just the recipients of these kidneys that should be grateful to the donors. We are all very much in their debt.