““When I saw
those toenails,” Mary told me years later, “I nearly fainted. I thought, Oh jeez, she’s a real person. I started
imagining her sitting in her bathroom painting those toenails, and it hit me
for the first time that those cells we’d been working with all this time and
sending all over the world, they came from a live woman. I’d never thought of
it that way.” (Skloot, 91)
When we think
of medicine we often think of something that is there to help us, to heal us or
to benefit us in some way, however, this is not always the case. Scientist say
that they are working to create something for the greater good, to benefit the
greatest amount of people; but while conducting their research they seem to
forget about the human aspect of it all and view specimens as tools and not as
human beings. The scientists in Gey’s lab never cared about who Henrietta was.
They never looked into her personal life to discover the sweet and loving
person she was and they did not care about her family, unless it had to do with
growing more immortal cells. In this regard all the scientists saw was a means
to accomplish their specific goals of growing immortal cells. Henrietta was not
a person to these scientists but she was a tool; a tool that they exploited
even after her death. Even after her death the scientists insisted on gathering
more of her cells, when her husband said no they pushed and lied and said they were
doing the research to help her children someday (Skloot, 90). Yes, these cells
might have helped her children someday, but this was not the main goal of the
scientists. They wanted to use her once more to see if any of her other cells
were “immortal.” They did not care that her family might not want their loved
one’s body being torn apart in a lab or that maybe Henrietta would not want
that either, since she was never truly able to give consent. As Mary said she
never once thought of her as a real person until she saw her. This should have
never been the case, the cells clearly came from somewhere and the place they
came from was a living human being, not a tool which could be used and reused
for science.
Word Count:
327
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New
York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2010. 92. Print.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"When Henrietta’s cousin Emmett Lacks heard somebody at Sparrows Point say Henrietta was sick and needed blood, he threw down the steep pipe he was cutting and ran looking for his brother and some friends.” (Skloot, 85)
ReplyDeleteThe friendships Henrietta Lacks had with everyone she knew were ones of love and kindness. She was extremely caring toward anyone she came into contact with. Emmett Lacks proved a great example which showed that Henrietta took the time and energy to support him and others in times of need with shelter, food, and care. Many individuals were able to get to know her on a personal level, which was not something the doctors and scientists did. I agree with Harmelle when saying that her doctors never truly cared about getting to know who the woman behind the HeLa cells was. For example, when Mary realized that she hadn’t even taken the chance to realize that an actual person had been behind the success of the HeLa cells it was too late, she was gone. It is such a tragic mistake for medical caretakers to just ignore the facts that their patients are humans and not just things they can experiment on. I feel that when Henrietta’s husband Day decided to sign the autopsy form giving permission to let doctors run some tests, but he wasn’t fully aware that this was mainly for the scientist’s benefit. They told Day that this could possibly help their children one day, and so with this in mind he gave them permission. Overall, I agree with Harmelle’s message in saying that these doctors used Henrietta at a specimen to examine, with no regard for her humanity.
Word Count: 242
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2010. 92. Print.