Do you think we can sacrifice few persons to make others happier? I don’t think so. Many people might say yes to this question because no one thinks that you or your family will be the few persons to be sacrificed and logically, help thousands of people by sacrificing few people might sound nice for human beings. However, scientists may make poor decisions because of their passion for discovery and we cannot forget about the respect for fundamental human rights. In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, she writes about experiments back in the mid-twentieth century when she says, “They recruited hundreds of African-American men with syphilis, then watched them die slow, painful, and preventable deaths, even
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I understand that if the researcher couldn’t take the cells from Henrietta, the development of medical science would have been slower. However, we all must think of respect for basic human rights and it’s necessary to think that society or people who have power must not force an individual to abandon their life or to give someone part of their body. Skloot writes about the feelings of the Lacks family, about how Henrietta was treated when she writes, “What really would upset Henrietta is the fact that Dr. Gey never told the family anything-we didn't know nothing about those cells and he didn't care. That just rubbed us the wrong way. I just kept asking everybody, ‘Why didn't they say anything to the family?’ They knew how to contact us! If Dr. Gey wasn't dead, I think I would have killed him myself” (169). We should not make someone feel like this anymore. Therefore, medical research should not be done without the patient’s informed consent even if research proves invaluable for humankind because everyone must have their rights to select what they want to do with their …show more content…
Skloot writes about the Hela cells when she writes, “But Henrietta’s cells weren’t merely surviving, they were growing with mythological intensity” (40). And also writes “George told a few of his closest colleagues that he thought his lab might have grown the first immortal human cells. To which they replied, Can I have some? And George said yes” (41). The cells that took out from Henrietta, helped a lot of people from dying for example, of polio. No other cells before Hela cells were able to help cure of polio. If Henrietta was educated, she might not have been exploited by John Hopkins. Henrietta was raised by her grandfather, Tommy Lacks who had tobacco field and she had to work there so she had to stop going to school after sixth grade. In the article The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society written by Jonathan Kozol, the author describes the rights of illiterate people. He says, “Illiterates cannot read the notices that they receive from welfare offices or from the IRS. They must depend on word-of-mouth instruction from the welfare worker-or from other person whom they have good reason to mistrust. They do not know what right they have, what deadlines and requirement they face, what opinions they might to choose to exercise. They are half-citizens. Their rights exist in print but not in fact” (232). Without knowing how to read
I understand that if the researcher couldn’t take the cells from Henrietta, the development of medical science would have been slower. However, we all must think of respect for basic human rights and it’s necessary to think that society or people who have power must not force an individual to abandon their life or to give someone part of their body. Skloot writes about the feelings of the Lacks family, about how Henrietta was treated when she writes, “What really would upset Henrietta is the fact that Dr. Gey never told the family anything-we didn't know nothing about those cells and he didn't care. That just rubbed us the wrong way. I just kept asking everybody, ‘Why didn't they say anything to the family?’ They knew how to contact us! If Dr. Gey wasn't dead, I think I would have killed him myself” (169). We should not make someone feel like this anymore. Therefore, medical research should not be done without the patient’s informed consent even if research proves invaluable for humankind because everyone must have their rights to select what they want to do with their …show more content…
Skloot writes about the Hela cells when she writes, “But Henrietta’s cells weren’t merely surviving, they were growing with mythological intensity” (40). And also writes “George told a few of his closest colleagues that he thought his lab might have grown the first immortal human cells. To which they replied, Can I have some? And George said yes” (41). The cells that took out from Henrietta, helped a lot of people from dying for example, of polio. No other cells before Hela cells were able to help cure of polio. If Henrietta was educated, she might not have been exploited by John Hopkins. Henrietta was raised by her grandfather, Tommy Lacks who had tobacco field and she had to work there so she had to stop going to school after sixth grade. In the article The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society written by Jonathan Kozol, the author describes the rights of illiterate people. He says, “Illiterates cannot read the notices that they receive from welfare offices or from the IRS. They must depend on word-of-mouth instruction from the welfare worker-or from other person whom they have good reason to mistrust. They do not know what right they have, what deadlines and requirement they face, what opinions they might to choose to exercise. They are half-citizens. Their rights exist in print but not in fact” (232). Without knowing how to read