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Henrietta Lacks Without Her Consent Essay

663 Words3 Pages

“Was It Illegal for Doctors to Take Cells from Henrietta Lacks Without her Consent?” How can you take cells from a human being and treat them as clothes that you’re just selling. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot told the story of the woman behind the famous cell line and the fact that her family did not know about Lacks’ immortal cells until more than 20 years after her death. Some believe it was legal to take Mrs. Lacks cells, while others disagree and say it’s illegal. It was definitely illegal for the doctors and scientist to take Henrietta’s cells without her consent. Taking cells was not a part of her surgical procedure. Henrietta was a human being that should have been treated with respect. But mainly, George Gey treated her with everything but that. Taking 20+ years to tell her children …show more content…

Things such as the right to get a copy of medical records and the right to keep them private. I know these laws were in affect by the time Henrietta’s files were released. Her death certificate and things should not have been released regardless of the reasoning. The way all of the background was released for her book but it took 20+ years for her children to find out about her cells was ridiculous. No one had to ask could everything about Henrietta be released, but it was released without incident. But it took 20+ years for the information about Henritetta’s cells. It was still illegal for the doctors to take her cells and have their way with them, without her consent. These doctors and scientist did not really care about Henrietta because she was a colored women. Things would have a lot different if Henrietta was a white women with cancer. Despite the wrongdoings Henrietta Lacks was put through her cells did a lot to help advance science. Her cells helped develop different types of vaccines, which such as her daughter faced. A lot of good and bad came out of Henrietta’s

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