The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

Technical Difficulties Essay
From light bulbs to airplanes, technology comes in a variety of forms. But how do people manage the hiccups the invention brings? The gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley introduces Victor Frankenstein, a bright person looking to explore and gain an adequate understanding of life and death. He created a creature without thinking of the question, "What next?" Subsequently, it backfired due to his carelessness, leading his creation to cause harm to the people closest to him. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot is a non-fiction novel about the injustice the Lacks family faced regarding Henrietta Lacks' cells. The cells recovered from her body were a key component of the advances today, but

They both talk about how it would affect the environment, whether it was positive or negative. When creating technology, the safety of humans, animals, and the environment should be a priority. Additionally, staying within ethical limits is crucial to ensuring the pros outweigh the cons. Shelly’s novel Frankenstein brings to life a story where Victor Frankenstein creates an advanced being using electricity and chemicals to reanimate the deceased once more. Harmlessly, the creature tells Victor, "Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine;my joints more supple."(89) This shows Victor created a creature with an abnormal set of abilities; the creature is superior in every aspect in comparison to a human. Continuously, the creature knows its capabilities, indicating that Victor does not have a backup plan if something should go wrong. Therefore, it is clear that Victor did not behave responsibly when using technology. Without a doubt, the benefiting factors of the creature could have been a possibility because "[it] rushed from [its] hiding-place and with extreme labour, from the force of the current, saved her and

These cells were deemed helpful because they allowed scientists to conduct experiments as well as aid in the advancement of the medical field. Supportingly, the cells are "...forever—bought, sold, packaged, and shipped by the trillions to laboratories around the world." (44) This shows that without the cells, it is possible we wouldn't be as advanced in the knowledge we now have on treatments for herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, and Parkinson's disease. Equally important, "they’ve been used to study lactose digestion, sexually transmitted diseases, appendicitis, human longevity, mosquito mating, and the negative cellular effects of working in sewers."(44) This is important because not only have they been used for treatments, but they also provided a variety of information that certainly made life easier by giving people more options to combat their issues. To balance against the benefits, the scientist's inability to compensate Henrietta Lacks' family was irresponsible because "she's the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty."(168) This means that after all of the uses of the HeLa cells, they were still struggling to make ends meet as they were yet to receive health insurance. Furthermore, Henrietta’s son Lawrence got upset