ipl-logo

What Are The Ethical Issues In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

847 Words4 Pages

HeLa has made a great contribution to the way that the world sees and learns about cells. The HeLa cells have a astonishing story behind them. This story starts with a women names Henrietta Lacks. In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot told us the journey of the Lacks family and pointed out many ethical problems throughout the book. The issue of race was what stood out the most to me as I was reading. Over and over again it was clearly pointed out that Henrietta was a women who was black. This then led people to believe because of her race she did not matter. I believe Skloot saw racism as a problem but did not express this as much as she did other reasons in the book. Race was shown as a problem in several different …show more content…

When Henrietta went to John Hopkins Hospital she soon found out that she had Cervical Cancer. While she was under anesthetics they took some cells without her knowledge and gave them to a lab. If she had been a white women I feel as if they would have asked her for a sample of her cells and respected her decision whether it be yes or no. The hospital continued to do things that she did not know of. The Doctors put countless lies on her health records and did not try there hardest to ease the pain for Henrietta. If it had been a white women she would have been given medicine and therapy to help heal her body and mind but Henrietta was given nothing but a small pain reliever. She was left lying on her death bed while her mind and thoughts destroy her sanity till she …show more content…

Even after Henrietta's death people still kept wanting things from her family when they still didn't even know about her cells. People wanted to do experiments of the family cause their cells had direct connections to Henrietta's. They would tell the family lies such as we are testing to see if they will be positive for cancer but there wasn’t even a test for cancer. The family didn’t know there wasn’t a test because they didn't have knowledge of the science world. Even if the doctors did try to explain the situation to the family they wouldn't understand the meaning of all the big words used. When the family finally learned about the cells they had learned not to trust people asking the about Henrietta and disclosed themselves to the whole situation. They did not care to talk to anyone who wanted to know about the cells or their family knowing that the person really didn’t care about the Lacks family they just wanted answers to there never ending

Show More
Related

  • Henrietta Lacks: Her Cells In The 1950's And Today

    734 Words  | 3 Pages

    Her cells have been bought and sold by the billions. The Lacks family still cannot afford health insurance(Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

    520 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks overviews the story of a young black woman who dies a painful death duo to an aggressive invasive type of cervical cancer, something doctors were currently studying and developing way to combat it. Rebecca Skloot, the author, takes us to journey to see through the eyes of the Lacks family. Many would call what was done to them unfair, but as Skloot lets us know, this was common practice (and still is in many cases) during that time. The important thing was that the ignorance of who was responsible for the cells that we call “immortal,” the cells that have given us a “Rosetta stone” for medical research, is now diminish, this was especially important to the Lacks. The book focuses mainly on the story of Henrietta’s

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Research Papers

    613 Words  | 3 Pages

    Would people in 1951 feel any different if they knew black people could produce lifesaving cures with technology? Henrietta Lacks was a black woman that got cervical cancer and went to Hopkins hospital because it was the closest segregated hospital around. While Henrietta was as Hopkins, they were doing tests and during that process, Dr. Gey took Henrietta’s cells without her consent. Henrietta was diagnosed with Cervical cancer doctors took samples without her consent. She had five kids and died at Hopkins hospital on October 4, 1951 being only 31 years old.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Summary

    567 Words  | 3 Pages

    Readers can feel Rebecca Skloot is a biased writer from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, who has a little bit racialism thinking. Because her book is

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Book Report

    1597 Words  | 7 Pages

    When Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951, she left her five children motherless and alone. This includes one of her two daughters, Deborah Lacks. Throughout her life, Deborah never was able to meet her mother and knew of her only as an idea- a woman who died soon after her birth. After Henrietta’s death, she faded into old news and was hardly ever talked about. Deborah only ever wanted to learn more about her mother, going as far as harassing her brother, Lawrence, until he broke down into tears.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

    869 Words  | 4 Pages

    About 60 years ago, before African Americans had much respect at all, there was a woman named Henrietta Lacks who was diagnosed with cancer in her cervix. Without asking for permission, Henrietta’s doctors took some of her cells from her cervix, and they took them to do more research on them and tried to grow them for the first time outside of a persons body. Because she was African American, she and the rest of her family were not respected by doctors, or many other people at this time. These cells later became very critical to medical advancements and scientific research for the rest of the world. But, the injustice of this situation raises a large controversy over whether or not this is justified.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Sparknotes

    729 Words  | 3 Pages

    First of all, Henrietta was an African American woman at the time when there was still inequality and segregation towards African Americans. This was really evident when she went in for her checkups at Hopkins and how she was never asked for her consent with her cell tissue. Also, the medical treatments at that time were not very safe or effective. An example would be when they used radium to try and treat her cervical cancer. Little did they know that radium destroys any cells it touches and it can also cause cancer.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

    1217 Words  | 5 Pages

    After her death in 1951, for six decades, the name Henrietta Lacks was not a recognized name in the eyes of the society, but cells containing her DNA did. HeLa Cells are the first immortal human cells, cancerous cells taken from Henrietta’s cervix never die, in fact they multiply every twenty-four hours. After spending 10 years to perfect her first book, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot encapsulated the life, the death, and aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’ life. Throughout her book, Rebecca Skloot takes the reader on an extraordinary journey through the lens of the Lacks family, dealing with controversial issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class. The journey of the Lacks families started in Henrietta’s hometown Clover, Virginia then progressed to the “colored” ward of

    Read More

  • How Did Henrietta Lacks Use The Ethics Of Medical And Biological Research?

    1381 Words  | 6 Pages

    What would you do if a doctor took your cells without consent and shortly after, your cells went viral, being sent all over the world to millions of different scientists? Well, I can’t say that Henrietta Lacks lived through this, but I can say that her cells did. Bioethics, the ethics of medical and biological research, has been a controversial issue throughout the U.S. for years. Different laws have been formalized to help tame the fire on the topic of consent and mortality. In the year of 1951, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had too many tumors to count inside her rotting body.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Life And Legacy

    235 Words  | 1 Pages

    She had five children when she fell ill and was devastated to learn her radium treatments left her unable to have more. She was protective of her family’s feelings, by keeping her cancer a secret from them so as not to worry them. Her family described her as an outgoing and beautiful woman of God. Henrietta and I have very little in common. I’ve never experienced prejudice because of my skin color or lived in a

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Henrietta Lacks

    239 Words  | 1 Pages

    Henrietta Lacks was a black tobacco farmer from the south who, in 1950, at the age of 30, she was diagnosed with aggressive cervical cancer. Lacks went to John’s Hopkins medical center for treatment for her cancer. In April of 1951, she underwent surgery to remove the larger tumor on her cervix. Henrietta Lacks, died three days following the surgery. Even though Henrietta Lacks died, her cells from the tumor have lived on and have made a major impact on the biomedical community.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Thesis

    1020 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc.

    Read More

  • Racism In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    743 Words  | 3 Pages

    Her doctor collected cancerous cells and healthy cells from her cervix and gave them to the cancer researcher, George Otto Gey, who was trying to keep cells alive for more than a couple days. Henrietta endured intense radium treatments, but she still died at the age of 31, leaving her husband and five children behind. An amazing discovery was made Henrietta’s cell were immortal. Racism is prevalent in this book through the limited availability of healthcare, unethical behaviors of the doctors, and how racism affected her family. During this time, there was an extensive lack of medical care for colored people.

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Without Her Consent Essay

    663 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks And Ethics

    462 Words  | 2 Pages

    The origination of HeLa cells, used in biomedical research for a potential cure for cancer, had made many ground breaking discoveries in science; all thanks to one woman, Mrs. Henrietta Lacks. The history of Mrs. Lacks’s contribution to these studies raised many ethical issues concerning healthcare practice. In the short film, The Way of All Flesh, we learn how these cells were revealed by direct violation of ethical principles. During the 1950s, matters regarding informed consent practices were in their beginning stages of implementation.

    Read More

More about What Are The Ethical Issues In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Open Document