In “Part 1: Life” of “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, she starts telling us the life of Henrietta, where she grew, that she married Day, and everything she went trough with her cancer. But, more than that, Skloot is trying to show us the ethical, social, and health issues black people had back in those days, and also she wants to let us know how lucky we are to live in this period where we have a lot of opportunities, racism is not a strong movement but still affects the society a little, and of course give thanks to the advances of the medical and science world most of it because of the HeLa cells. First, when we talk about ethics we talk about moral principles, what is good and what is bad. Throughout the book the author starts showing us the unethical things doctors use to do. For example, on Chapter 3 she writes “Like many doctors of his era, Telinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free …show more content…
In those Days being black was like being an animal, people would treat you different and you had no opportunities of becoming successful. As soon as we start reading the book Rebecca let us know that this was the time when black people had to go to different bathrooms, had different treatments, in less words they could not do what white people did. As stated on the book “This was the era of Jim Crow-when black people showed up at white-only hospitals, the staff was likely to send them away, even if it meant they might die in the parking lot. Even Hopkins, which did treat black patients, segregated them in colored wards and had colored-only fountains.”(p.15). People use to think, that black people were inferior to the white race. Another good examples of the society problem, is when we get to know Carrell, the mad racist scientist, who wrote a book named “Man, the
From the persistent phone calls phone calls explaining her intentions to the accurate portrayal that the family so desperately wanted for Henrietta. Skloot dismantles the idea that Henrietta and her family were nothing but abstractions that did not have a place in the media or scientific community and builds on the fact that HeLa cells once belonged to a human being. That human being was a beautiful woman with “... walnut eyes, straight white teeth, and full lips… She kept her nails short so bread dough wouldn’t stick under them when she kneaded it, but she always painted them a deep red to match her toenails.”
...and the great scientific achievements that followed were very interesting to me and very well written by Rebecca Skloot. But what made it all so real for me, was the personal story of Henrietta and her family. The frustration of the family and the lack of information that was given by the scientists really made me angry. These people suffered from so much injustice, why did no one made a small effort to explain it to them all? Reading about the health problems The story of the Lackes really visualizes the problems in science before, and the need to resolve them. In the end, the most important lesson learnt is that human tissue used for research shouldn’t be used in such a materialistic way, but it should be handled with in a respectful and ethical way.
Henrietta Lacks is not a common household name, yet in the scientific and medical world it has become one of the most important and talked names of the century. Up until the time that this book was written, very few people knew of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells contributed to modern science, but Rebecca Skloot aimed to change this. Eventually Skloot was able to reach Henrietta’s remaining family and through them she was able to tell the story of not only the importance of the HeLa cells but also Henrietta’s life.
In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot describes the life of an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks whose “immortal” cells changed both the field of science and her family’s lives forever. When Henrietta Lacks passed away due to cervical cancer at the young age of 31, her family accepted the fact that she was gone forever. However, little did they know that during her treatments, George Gey, a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital, took a sample of Henrietta’s cells and named them HeLa in hopes of finding one that multiplied infinitely. Suddenly, worldwide factories began to grow HeLa and began selling them to scientists for testing. During this process, Henrietta’s husband and 5 children had absolutely no idea that Henrietta’s cells were still alive because few knew the actual name of the patient who HeLa came from. Eventually, they found out and were furious at Johns Hopkins and refused to speak to anyone who wanted information on Henrietta. Throughout the book, Rebecca Skloot struggles
In the novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, tries to convince the audience that her argument regarding, Henrietta and her cells is worth thinking about. Skloot argues that the woman whose body contained these life-changing cells deserved to be recognized. While trying to prove her side of the argument, Skloot uses logos within the novel to emphasize to the audience just how important her cells are, by providing the science behind the cells and their accomplishments.
As Rebecca Scoot transport her readers in her narrative of accounts of the Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, she delicately uncovers injustice not within one family but within a system. As she focuses in giving a voice to the Lacks, she also highlights the strength and leadership of the family matriarch of Henrietta Lacks and her cell know as HELA. Envisioning Mrs. Lacks and her family trajectory it exposes discrimination and bias on a much large scale than poorly uneducated oppress Negro or African American during 1950’s. The life of Henrietta and her family’s situation had moderate similarities of another book, The Isis Paper. The Isis Papers the keys to the Colors, by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing’s, (March 18, 1935- January 2, 2016.) In
Blacks were treated unjustly due to the Jim Crow laws and the racial stigmas embedded into American society. Under these laws, whites and colored people were “separate but equal,” however this could not be further from the truth. Due to the extreme racism in the United States during this time period, especially in the South, many blacks were dehumanized by whites to ensure that they remained inferior to them. As a result of their suffering from the prejudice society of America, there was a national outcry to better the lives of colored people.
In the novel The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author tells the miraculous story of one woman’s amazing contribution to science. Henrietta Lacks unknowingly provides scientists with a biopsy capable of reproducing cells at a tremendusly fast pace. The story of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates how an individual’s rights can be effortlessly breached when it involves medical science and research. Although her cells have contributed to science in many miraculous ways, there is little known about the woman whose body they derived from. Skloot is a very gifted author whose essential writing technique divides the story into three parts so that she, Henrietta
“Racism is still with us, but it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and hopefully we shall overcome” –Rosa Parks. Even though racism had calmed down the people still would have judged the fact that Henrietta was African American. Henrietta faced multiple cases of segregation. For example, she faced segregation at John Hopkins Hospital, she was lied to because of her education level, and racism was a huge problem in 1951. Publishing Henrietta’s story, to me, in 1951 would have had not been any different then it being published in 1976. This was still a period full of segregation in hospitals and racism in the streets.
Rebecca Skloot’s novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, depicts the violation of medical ethics from the patient and researcher perspectives specifically when race, poverty, and lack of medical education are factors. The novel takes place in the southern United States in 1951. Henrietta Lacks is born in a poor rural town, Clover, but eventually moves to urban Turner Station. She was diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins hospital where cells was unknowingly taken from her and used for scientific research. Rebecca Skloot describes this when she writes, “But first—though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting sample or asked she wanted to be a donor—Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta's cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby. Then he placed the samples in a glass dish” (33). The simple act of taking cells, which the physicians did not even think twice about, caused decades
When we want to satisfy our many desires, we begin to affect those around us. In the reading “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, Henrietta Lacks seems to play the role of
Despite the thought that all men were created equally, African Americans weren’t treated as though they were, and were excluded from certain public facilities. Some accommodations that were divided by race included schools, theatres, taverns, bathrooms, religious centers, etc. (Appiah and Gates). As described in To Kill A Mockingbird, “The colored balcony ran along three walls of the courtroom like a second story veranda” (Lee 204). This passage exemplifies how colored individuals were treated differently than the white people. They weren’t just excluded from public facilities, but they were also excluded from society.
The story about Henrietta Lacks is the evidence that the ethics of medical processes need to be improved. For a long time, many patients have been victims of malpractice. Sometimes, the doctors still can do anything without the agreement from patients. Any medical institution needs to hold the integrity on any consent form that is signed by a patient. To summarize, the story of Henrietta Lacks could be the way to improve the standardization and equality of medical institutions in the future.
One of the best-known works from the period is Medical Ethics; or, a Code of Institutes and Precepts, Adapted to the Professional Conduct of Physicians and Surgeons, published in 1803 by the British physician Thomas Percival. In his 72 precepts, Percival urged a level of care and attention such that doctors would “inspire the minds of their patients with gratitude, respect, and confidence.” His ethics, however, also permitted withholding the truth from a patient if the truth might be “deeply injurious to himself, to his family, and to the
McGee, Glenn and Arthur L. Caplan. "Medical Ethics." Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1997: Microsoft Corporation. CD-ROM.