Similarities and Differences of the Donors' Lives and a "Normal" Life

A question a feel like we haven’t really discussed fully in class yet is how restricted the donors’ lives really were? What similarities and differences are their between their lives and “normal” lives?

During the presentation at the end of class, I was in the “donors” group. As we went through the three questions on the board, I really began to think of to what extent the donors’ lives really are restricted and cut off from “normal” lives that we are accustomed to here in the United States and other free countries. The most noticeable difference from living a “normal” life is the fact the donors never had an actual, real family because they are clones. You could consider their friends and the guardians as their family but I’m talking about biological parents, siblings, and etc. Being a clone is also not considered a “normal” life. People (at least that I’m aware of) are not raised for the sole purpose to donate their organs and be killed. “Normal” people live their life on their own accord for the most part and aren’t raised to sacrifice their lives for others.
Even though it is obvious the donors do not live “normal” lives, some aspects of their lives can be related to a “normal” life in some parts of the world. We know the donors lived restricted lives, just like some people in the real world do. An example would people who live in North Korea. The donors are brainwashed at their school to believe that being raised to donate their organs is perfectly alright and an acceptable way to live a life. People in North Korea and citizens of other countries are sometimes brainwashed. In a society like North Korea, choice is very limited. The donors, as my group and I discussed, lacked a lot of choice in their life. They could not freely leave the school until they were sent off to the cottages. They didn’t have a choice when it came to if they wanted to donate their organs or not. When my group and I were answering the question, “Where do you see yourself 10 years from now,” (or something like that) we didn’t really have much of a choice but to say either being a carer for donors or donating organs ourselves, and not living a complete life.
I think it’s easy to say that the donors did not live “normal” lives but at the same time, some parts of their lives were “normal”.