The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

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Most people live in capitalist societies where money matters a lot. Essentially, ownership is also of significance since it decides to whom the money goes. In present days, human tissues matter in the scientific field. Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, shows how Henrietta Lacks’s cells have been used well, and at the same time, how they have been a hot potato in science because of the problem of the ownership. This engages readers to try to answer the question, “Should legal ownership have to be given to people?” For that answer, yes. People should be given the rights to ownership over their tissues for patients to decide if they are willing to donate their tissues or not. Reasons will be explained as follows. From …show more content…

By common sense, people are said to have freedom to choose their actions. If people would like to donate their tissues and help scientists voluntarily, they can help only based on their free will. Naturally, they can choose to donate their tissues for science development. Also people have attachment to their tissues. The fact makes it possible for people to think that they lost their body parts even though it is a tissue. According to “Taking the Least of You” written by Rebecca Skloot, Andrews says that autonomy and personal freedom are easily overlooked. (The $3 Billion Man) Another example from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is that Dr. George Gey tried to hide the real name of the person from which the HeLa cells came, because the Lacks family was unaware of the fact that HeLa cell was still alive even after Henrietta Lacks had died. (ch. 14) If Dr. Gey and Lacks family held such notion that cell and the original person are totally separated, then ‘Helen Lane,’ a fake name for Henrietta Lacks, would not exist, because there is

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