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Henrietta lacks an ethical dilemma
Ethical dilemmas in the immortal life of henrietta lacks
Henrietta lacks an ethical dilemma
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I think that Henrietta's family members felt like they should be monetarily compensated for Henrietta's contribution because of the discrimination that they got from everyone around them. I don't think that Henrietta's family wanted money I think that they wanted to be known for their mother being able to contribute to Science. They just wanted everyone to know who was helping advance Science at such a fast rate back then because sometimes it was unclear what her real name was. They weren't in it for the money but instead they just wanted justice for what had happened to Henrietta. I think that if the family would have had enough money to keep them stable and they were white it wouldn't have changed dramatically. No matter what everyone wants
All I can say is amazing information of your glorious and late Henrietta Lacks. This incedible women bettered our society in ways no common human could understand at the time because of how complex this matter was and still very much indeed is. I know there is much contraversy with the matter of how scientists achived immortal cells from your late relative, and I do strongly agree with the fact that it was wrong for these researches to take advantage of this incredible women, but I know it is not for me to say nonethless it must be said that even though it was wrong to take Lacks’ cells when she was dying sometimes one must suffer to bring joy to the entire world.
An abstraction can be defined as something that only exists as an idea. People are considered abstractions when they are dehumanized, forgotten about, or segregated and discriminated against. The scientific community and the media treated Henrietta Lacks and her family as abstractions in several ways including; forgetting the person behind HeLa cells, giving sub-par health care compared to Caucasians, and not giving reparations to the Lacks family. On the other hand, Rebecca Skloot offers a different perspective that is shown throughout the book. Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks describes the trials and tribulations the Lacks family has gone through because of HeLa cells and shows how seeing a person as an abstraction is a dangerous thing.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by: Rebecca Skloot has a lot of themes, but one that is most relevant in my opinion is the racial politics of medicine. Throughout the chapters, there were examples of how Henrietta, being African American, prevented her from receiving the same treatment as the white woman sitting right next to her in the waiting room. The story begins with Henrietta going to Johns Hopkins Hospital and asking a physician to check a “knot on her womb.” Skloot describes that Henrietta had been having pain around that area for about a year, and talked about it with her family, but did not do anything until the pains got intolerable. The doctor near her house had checked if she had syphilis, but it came back negative, and he recommended her to go to John Hopkins, a known university hospital that was the only hospital in the area that would treat African American patients during the era of Jim Crow. It was a long commute, but they had no choice. Patient records detail some of her prior history and provide readers with background knowledge: Henrietta was one of ten siblings, having six or seven years of schooling, five children of her own, and a past of declining medical treatments. The odd thing was that she did not follow up on upcoming clinic visits. The tests discovered a purple lump on the cervix about the size of a nickel. Dr. Howard Jones took a sample around the tissue and sent it to the laboratory.
...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.
Words are powerful. As a result, changing one word in a sentence can make the biggest of differences. The quote above is part of a statement by Honorable Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. of the house of representatives commemorating Henrietta Lacks. Ms. Lacks was whom the HeLa cells that have been used since their discovery came from. The use of the word “provided” in Ehrlich’s statement is controversial, as Henrietta Lacks’ cells were taken from her and used regardless of her opinion. Her privacy was taken from her and used by the public without her consent. This turns attention to other women have had their privacy brushed aside, such as Frieda Kahlo. Lacks’ cells were made public, much like Kahlo’s diary was made public. The manner in which authors
Did you ever wonder what are when HELA cells came to exist ?In the book the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, The author answers all your questestion that you could ever have about HELA cells. In this book be theme would be injustice because the doctors took the cells form her Henrietta without her knowing because she was poor and didn’t have the money. HELA cells first came to be when Henrietta Lacks was telling a couple of her friends that she felt like she had a knot in her stomach. Five months later she had a child, but the pain in her stomach still continued, so she finally went to doctor Jones to look inside her to see if there was anything wrong. When the doctor was done with his inspection he told her that she
What is privacy? Well, it’s the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people. In terms of information, it is the right to have some control over how one’s own personal information is collected and used. This is a right that has been inherently protected by the U.S Constitution, agreed upon by the Supreme Court, and yet, issues around this very topic arise every day. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author Rebecca Skloot, addresses this issue in her story of the women behind the infamous HeLa cells. Her story shows that although privacy is a right that is inherently protected by the law, situations of injustice can still occur. Examples of this in the book include when Henrietta’s cells were given to Dr. Gey without any consent from Day, the situation in which Mr. Golde’s spleen was sold without his permission, as well as when the Lacks family were recontacted and mislead about the reasons they were tested years after Henrietta’s death.
“Like most young Lackses, Day didn't finish school: he stopped in the fourth grade because the family needed him to work the fields. But Henrietta stayed until the sixth grade. During the school year, after taking care of the garden and livestock every morning, she'd walk two miles—past the white school where children threw rocks and taunted her—to the colored school, a three-room wooden farmhouse hidden under tall shade trees…]
Winfrey was born in to poverty, where she literally wore potato sacks as clothing. From this home life. she was abused both sexually, and mentally. Winfrey wasn't a wealthy person from the start or even when she decided to start her own TV talk show. Free enterprise may allow for those who have become wealthy to gain even more success, but it is more beneficial for those just starting out. This system allows anyone regardless of race, gender, or age to pursue what they want. Oprah Winfrey was not only a woman but an African American in an otherwise racist world when she began to strive for her future. Without the non-discriminatory system, Winfrey would have not been able to make the impact in the world that she has and still continues to do
No, I don’t think she should have shared her information more freely because the information she shared about the double helix structure was stolen by other scientists such as Watson and Crick. Even if it was originally hers, she got no credit by the scientific society.
“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.
Henrietta Lacks, a young black woman suffering from cervical cancer, has and continues to contribute greatly to the advancement of science unbeknownst to her and her family. This young woman has played a crucial role in developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization (Zielinski, 2010). “Protecting human dignity and preventing exploitation are core concepts in both bioethics and human rights” (Marouf & Esplin, 2015). These core concepts were not upheld in 1951 when a Johns Hopkins scientist took a tissue sample from a young woman dying from cervical cancer (Zielinski, 2010). This scientist violated two major concepts in this particular case: informed consent and privacy and autonomy.
While reading the book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, I had so many emotions running through my mind. I would often think, what if that was my family or me? It is also very different because of the years this happened in. there were a lot of unlawful things going on that should have been against the law but were not at the time. Henrietta, as I read was an amazing woman who has a harsh life and also after she lost her life, it continued to be difficult. Henrietta kept her cancer from her family for some time and as stated in the book it was common for people to keep secrets about medical conditions (Skloot). I think Lacks is am amazing woman, not only for what she unknowingly did for the future of medicine but also as a mother and wife. She was such a strong woman and her legacy carry on and she story will be told all over.
..., the name of Henrietta Lacks needs to be introduced to the world since she is the woman who generated HeLa cells, because the name of the person who generated HeLa cells is still unknown. By doing this, her family will be honored and respected by others.