The wisdom pond

This article talks about the ethics of using one’s cells without their knowledge. No one told/ asked Henrietta about using her cells, they just did it. Those cells were a part of her body so isn’t it wrong to use them without asking their owners permission. This relates to my abstract topic because Henrietta’s family was poor, they couldn’t even afford the proper medical help that Henrietta needed. This single fact overshadows the argument that it was ok to take her cells because they saved countless lives if the medical system couldn’t even provide suitable medical help for the host’s cells.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/henrietta-lackss-family-wants-compensation-for-her-cells/2017/02/14/816481ba-f302-11e6-b9c9-e83fce42fb61_story.html

Even though what the medical personal during the time of Henrietta lacks’ treatment did was wrong, this article discusses what the medical community is doing today to fix the mistakes that were made about 65 years ago. The article states that the standards during the time for using patients cells was a lot different from today, “It was common practice at Johns Hopkins (during the 1950′s) to collect tissue samples from cervical cancer patients, regardless of race or socio-economic status.” This statement by the John Hopkins medical team serves as a rebuttal of sorts to the people who believe the doctors took the cell samples because of Henrietta’s race. Even though John Hopkins claims to have not done anything racially unjust, they still stated, “The committee tasked with deciding who can use HeLa cells now includes two members of the Lacks family.” Which is a step in the right direction for the issue of who dictates who can use the cells.

In this article, the author asks the question “who should have the decisive power over someones cells after their death: their family, or the medical community?” This relates to the abstract topic of money/ class in America because if Henrietta’s family would have had power over the cells than they probably would have gotten quite a lot of money for them. The article discusses topics like racial alienation and how much of an impact the hela cells made on the world. It describes how, just like in the book, Henrietta and her family went through a lot of racial discrimination. This racial discrimination, which relates to class in America, which may have been the reason why the Lacks’ didn’t receive any compensation for the hela cells, or were even notified about them at all. Would the medical personals’s decision be different if Henrietta was white instead of black? Probably. But that might not be such a bad thing given how many lives Henrietta cells have saved. Topics such as these are all discussed in this article. https://philosophynow.org/issues/119/Henriettas_Story

At one point in the book on pg. 306 the author states, “Gary had wrapped his hand around Deborah’s head and passed the burden of the cells on to me, he’d died suddenly at the age of fifty-two from a heart attack. A few months later, Deborah called to say that Cliff’s brother Fred has died from throat cancer. Each time someone died, Deborah started crying. I thought the calls would never end. “Death just following us and this story everywhere we go,” she’d say. “But I’m hanging in there.”” This relates to class in America because usually when someone does something for the betterment of everyone in the country they would be praised and awarded. But because of Henrietta’s class at the time when her cells were taken, the doctors thought it was necessary not to involve her family. In the quote above, the author explains how everyone in the lacks family is dying off, but if Henriettas cells were so immortal, as some people explain to Deborah earlier in the book, then why can’t any of her family get the medical help they need. If someone’s cells were used today without there family’s knowledge there would be no question to whether that is acceptable or not. But because Henrietta was a black woman in a time where everything was segregated between white people and black people and it was avious what group of people had a higher class and therefor authority over the other, the cells that were taken from her don’t belong to her own blood. And the people patting Deborah on the back instead of giving her any actually form of reimbursement shows that everyone else knows about it too, but they want to make it an argument because of the class in America.

My abstract topic is money/ class in america. As I began reading the immortal life of Henrietta lacks, it became apparent right away that my topic plays a major role in the book. The first thing that I found that eludes to the topic of money is on pg. 9 under the page tilted “Deborah’s voice” when Deborah says, “But I always thought it was strange, if our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors? Don’t make no sense. People got rich off my mother without us even knowin about them takin her cells, now we don’t have a dime.” This quote from the begging of the book is used to set the tone for what’s to come and hint at the topics that are heavily used in the book. Even though Henrietta gave her up her cells for science and those same cells are used in almost every science lab today, her family doesn’t receive a dime. This quote also gives more insight about class in america because even though Henrietta’s own tissue is used everyday, her daughter can’t even afford a doctor. To highlight her topic of how convoluted the system of classes in america is Deborah uses a paradox in saying that her mom created most of medical science today but she can’t even afford to use those medical services created by her own mother’s cells.

Mountain biking is high art because to me art is anything that takes a lot of time and thought to get right but lets the artist express themselves however that may be. Mountain biking is the perfect outlet for many “artists” to express themselves through how they control the bike to how they set the trail.

Stability is the most important thing to get out of an education because in order to live life to the fullest you can’t have money be a burden. Also one of my core values is family. In the future, I really want to make my dad proud and buy him a house and one of the fastest and best ways to do that is getting through college so you have the knowledge needed to get a well paying job.