Medical Ethics In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Inferior Medical Techniques and Medical Ethics in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Throughout the medical field, doctors, surgeons, and nurses have found ways to create inferior treatment while they stayed inside the rules and boundaries of the medical field. The community that suffered most from these techniques was the African American community. Doctors treated African Americans with unsterile equipment, had procedures performed that were not specified before operation, and had parts of their own body stolen for examination without proper consent. African Americans and Caucasians earned totally different treatment because to the color of their skin which caused a conflict of ethics. The medical professionals has misinterpreted, ignored,

Bobbette, wife of Lawrence Lacks, realized the improper taking of Henrietta’s cells: “Everybody always saying Henrietta Lacks donated those cells- she didn’t donate nothing.” Skloot implies to the reader that Henrietta Lacks had given no consent in the experimentation of her cells. Thereby, the doctors performed unethical operation without proper consent. Thus, Skoot implies that the doctors destroyed the Lacks family by worrying more about these experiments than the life of Henrietta Lacks. Furthermore, the evidence places us into the mindset of the tempestuous Bobbette and creates a feeling of anger towards the doctors and a state of sadness due to the loss of a loved one through inferior medical techniques. The evidence, an example of pathos, matters because it gives the reader a sense of emotional understanding towards the Lacks family. Thus, the readers understand the effect of inferior medical techniques on not only the patient but the people strongly associated with the patients such as family members and close friends. Skloot wants the readers to understand the immorality of doctors breaking the unwritten code of medical ethics and, moreover, the impact on the people who suffer because of doctors’ arrogance towards

Deborah Lacks, eldest daughter of Henrietta Lacks, emphasizes the actuality that there needs to be a certain standard in medical ethics to protect one’s basic human rights, “Everybody knew black people were disappearing cause Hopkins was experimenting on them!” (169). Skloot implies to the reader that basic human rights were compromised because of the lack of clearly stated medical ethics. Thereby patients undergo unethical experimentation that can be harmful to them because medical ethics are not clearly stated and the doctors have found mischievous ways to perform unethical experiments. Thereby black people are disappearing because doctors are more worried about themselves than their patients thus allowing them to pass away when they are able to be saved. Furthermore Skloot states that many African Americans needed to earn better treatment because all people deserve equal standards and to achieve the goal of equal medical standards their must first be clearly stated medical