Henrietta Lacks Themes

They believe that the Planned Parenthood clinic is immoral and has even been called a “scandal-plagued organization” by Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), because of their “lack of compassion towards women and unborn children.” Congress claims that there will be no reduction to the funding of women’s health, only that it will go to a clinic that does not provide abortion services. The problem with this new plan is that many low-income women rely on Planned Parenthood for most of their healthcare services, and defunding the clinic would leave these women with no service. Although Republican congressmen claim that there are 9,000 other clinics around the country that provide women’s healthcare without providing abortions, they are still diminishing the amount of services that women have around the country. Not to mention that abortion is a basic and essential health need for women all around the world.

The issue of how the HeLa cell culture came to be is still a point of discussion. Without the consent of Henrietta, the cells never should have made it outside her body, much less into a lab, and yet they did anyway. And it is because of that breach of basic human rights and privacy that medical science has come as far as it has.

Shelby wanted a child even after the doctors told her it would not be a good idea to have a child because of her health. The she got pregnant and she did not have a care in the world and just wanted to have the baby even when she was warned not to by multiple people. Her mom was the most worried about her because she knew that there would be a consequence on Shelby’s health if she did have the child. I see this play’s set on stage as a hairs salon just because while I was reading the play, I pictured a lot of the scenes in the hair salon. The effects would work because that’s exactly how the play started off and that is where a lot of scenes take

Rebecca Skloot, the writer of The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, brings to light many unjust acts committed by those in the scientific and medical field. Skloot reveals that many lay victim to scientists, one of which is Henrietta Lacks. The book is written about one woman, Henrietta, who changed the field of science but did so without her knowledge. Skloot does well to acknowledge these topics through her use of imagery. Through Skloot’s use of imagery she was able to show the many injustices enacted by our scientific community.

Due to medical professionals’ ignorance and medical error, Tomcik lost her right breast, because her cancer grew over time and nothing was done to prevent it. Second action was done wrong by the nurse who couldn’t complete the examination since she didn’t have the required measuring device. A nurse whose job is to take care of patients should have shown more effort and talked to the authorities to get the right tools. A lump has to be taken very seriously if it’s felted anywhere in body special breasts. The morals, ethical values, and characteristics are lost in these kind of health professional health providers.

The book written by Masha Gessen is one that seems to fit into the continuing timeline of revolt against the government due to undesirable circumstances. It is quite evident as the book goes on that the members of Pussy Riot were not fond of Putin or the patriarchal system. There is an incredible amount of detail following these women and their lives before and after the arrest, even individually analyzing the three women that were arrested. The background stories of the women’s parents were intriguing because they had been raised by grandparents and it seemed that this was how they were also raising their own children. The incident in the Cathedral of Christ, however, was the performance that garnered national attention and widespread support.

They were forced to be pregnant for experiment use only. The scientists wanted to see if the transfer of diseases happened between mother to fetus or child during the pregnancy, typically syphilis. This was a stated reason for torture. Fetal survival and damage to the mother 's reproductive organs were the objects of interest. Even though there was a large amount of babies born in Unit 731, there is no account of any survivors from the facility, children included.

Beneatha first finds herself struggling with sexism as she dreams of becoming a doctor. Lisbeth Lipari, a journalist, writes on how A Raisin in the Sun comments on racism and classism, but fails to mention the obvious sexism laced throughout (Lipari 87). During this time, overwhelmingly, women held the position of “stay at home mom” rather than a powerful position such as a doctor, societies opinion leads her family to believe the same—she is not doctor material. Her family’s opposition displays itself after Beneatha wakes and greets her family. Walter, Beneatha’s brother, asks her how school is going, Beneatha responds, “Lovely.

The Hamlin’s had no physical experience with this condition due to its rarity in western countries. After much literary research, correspondence with other doctors (pg.77) and help from the revolutionary fistula discoveries of Dr James Marion Sims, who completed the first successful fistula operation and opened the world’s first fistula hospital in New York, the Hamlin’s felt confident enough to begin fistula operations on the patients. (pg.80) Hamlin depicts the gender inequality ever-present in the Ethiopian community. This is evident as she explains that women who suffer from obstetric fistula will be shunned from their village, and as a result induces physical and psychological trauma.

While there is stigma associated with visible illnesses, like Updike's psoriasis, there are also invisible mental illnesses. In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Esther is cautious of everyone around her, including her doctor and her very own mother. Right when she walks into his office, Esther doesn't trust Doctor Gordon," I hated him the minute I walked in through the door,"(Plath 128).Esther does not believe that this man will help her in any way because of her built up thoughts, "Then I thought, how could this Doctor Gordon help me anyway,"(Plath 129). Since Gordon does not fit Esther's imagine of what she wants the perfect Doctor to be , she doesn't trust him enough to tell him what's wrong. Esther even attempts removes her mother from her

Dr. George Otto Gey Rebecca Skloot writes in The Life of Henrietta Lacks, part two “Death” how she was able to contact the family and describes the medical research on HeLa cells. Rebecca Skloot has a hard time getting a hold of the family since trust is a big issue. To illustrate, since Henrietta Lacks cell are legendary in the medical and science community the Lacks family been bombarded with people trying to get information about Henrietta. Because of this, Rebecca, had to first gain the trust of the family before she will be able to talk to the family. Scientist and doctor used Henrietta’s cells on animals and people to study the effects of the cancer cells and gain new knowledge.

With Rebecca Skloot 's own investigation on the personal lives of the Lacks family, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks surpasses typical HeLa research reports by not only giving insight to the cells, but also to the people behind them. In presenting her writing as both a narrative and as a body of scientific information, Skloot attempts to fulfill the dual purpose of informing and entertaining her readers, distinguishing The Immortal Life from other impersonal works on the same matter. With the benefits of this dual purpose, however, obviously come problems. Being a non-fiction narrative, the story neither aims to exclusively inform nor entertain, resulting in a work that is too personal to give only relevant information, yet too informational

We live in a world with advanced medical resources but there is not a cure for every disease. There are many illnesses that have no cure and only guarantee prolong suffrage. In the Doctor Oz. Show Dana explained her story of being was discovered with Degenerative Neuromuscular disease which disabled her to move and only worsen as time progressed to the point where she was unable to do the simple things. She had to rely on someone for everything the only thing she only had the capacity to speak.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot is about an African American woman who had her cells taken without any consent from her or her family to benefit the medical and science field. The Lacks family had no idea about Henrietta’s cells were alive and tested on for all kind of experiments. Henrietta’s case and other similar cases brought up an issue of who has the ownership of the tissue: the patient or the researcher? This issue became serious when researchers and scientists started making profits and having it patented. The argument against giving people legal ownership of their tissues is that everyone benefits from the research.

The scientific community and the media are guilty of viewing Henrietta and her family as abstractions; they did not give the Lacks family a fair trial, they’ve yet to give her family any form of compensation for the success of her cell line, and operated on Henrietta like a science fair project. In the non-fiction narrative The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, it states, “The fact that no one had sued over the growth or ownership of the HeLa cell line, he said, illustrated that patients didn’t mind when doctors took their cells and turned them into commercial products.” (204) This is unfair to the Lacks family because the fraud lawyer, Keenan Kester Cofield, deceived them. Although he is a con artist, he has a wide spectrum of knowledge about law than the Lackses really have about anything; they’ve had little to no education, and they barely knew anything about the HeLa cell line.