Logic In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

651 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The life and experiments of josef mengele essay

The Effect of Logic in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks People trust doctors to save lives. Everyday millions of Americans swallow pills prescribed by doctors to alleviate painful symptoms of conditions they may have. Others entrust their lives to doctors, with full trust that the doctors have the patient’s best interests in mind. In cases such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the Crownsville Hospital of the Negro Insane, and Joseph Mengele’s Research, doctors did not take care of the patients but instead focused on their self-interest. Rebecca Skloot, in her contemporary nonfiction novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, uses logos to reveal corruption in the medical field in order to protect individuals in the future. Some doctors …show more content…

Skloot mentions several cases where doctors hurt people with their actions. One of which occurs during one conversation between Henrietta and Sadie; “Hennie” shows Sadie her stomach which is “burnt… black as tar.” Henrietta says the cancer feels like the blackness “be spreadin all inside” of her (48). To build factual evidence of the corruption, Skloot directly quotes Sadie in order to ensure the event really took place. She uses logic to connect the factual side effects of cancer treatment to the imagery of tar. She effectively communicates the terrible job the doctors do to treat Henrietta. The blackness of Henrietta’s skin represents the blackness in the medical system. Skloot knows that people want to get better, and if the medical system continues to stay flawed no one ever will. Another case in which doctors treated patients inhumanly involves Henrietta’s eldest daughter. Skloot writes, “Elsie Lacks [died from] respiratory failure, epilepsy, [and] cerebral palsy” (270). All of these ailments occurred in a supposed hospital, meant for the mentally disabled. Skloot uses facts to help the reader logically follow the horror story of the Lacks family. She spells out exactly what doctors put Elsie through and helps to illuminate the terrible state of the medical world at that time. She uses fact as undisputed tributes of knowledge to back her claims, and to make them appear undeniable. Skloot emphasizes the terrible failure of the

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

    1282 Words  | 3 Pages

    In February 2010, author and journalist Rebecca Skloot published a book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which included the stories surrounding the HeLa cell line as well as research into Henrietta Lacks' life. In 1951 a poor young black women, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer and at the time was treated in the “colored ward” or segregated division of Johns Hopkins Hospital. The procedure required samples of her cervix to be removed. Henrietta Lacks, the person who was the source of these cells was unaware of their removal. Her family was never informed about what had been accomplished with the use of her cells. The Lacks family has not received anything from the cell line to this day, although their mother’s cells have been bought and sold by many. This bestseller tells the stories of HeLa and traces the history of the cell while highlighting the ethical and legal issues of the research.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Rhetorical Analysis

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, tries to convince the audience that her argument regarding, Henrietta and her cells is worth thinking about. Skloot argues that the woman whose body contained these life-changing cells deserved to be recognized. While trying to prove her side of the argument, Skloot uses logos within the novel to emphasize to the audience just how important her cells are, by providing the science behind the cells and their accomplishments.

    Read More

  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

    1147 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr. Wharton removed a sample of her cervix tumor and a sample of her healthy cervix tissue and gave this tissue to dr. George Gey, who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for years. In the meantime that Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab. This all happened without the permission and the informing of Henrietta Lacks. The cells started growing in a unbelievable fast way, they doubled every 24 hours, Henrietta’s cells didn’t seem to stop growing. Henrietta’s cancer cell grew twenty times as fast as her normal healthy cells, which eventually also died a couple of days after they started growing. The first immortal human cells were grown, which was a big breakthrough in science. The HeLa cells were spread throughout the scientific world. They were used for major breakthroughs in science, for example the developing of the polio vaccine. The HeLa-cells caused a revolution in the scientific world, while Henrietta Lacks, who died Octob...

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Adversity In 'Henrietta Lacks'

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine that you were Douglas Mawson, along with two other explorers exploring unknown Antarctica, when everything goes wrong. Douglas Mawson suffered more adversity than Henrietta Lacks and Phineas Gage. Henrietta Lacks is about a woman who died from cervical cancer and her cells were extracted; later to find that her cells were immortal. Phineas Gage was a normal man when an extraordinary thing happened—he had a iron rod go through his skull. Phineas gage didn’t go through as much hardship, but he did go through more than Lacks. Half way through Mawson’s journey, both of his partners died, and it was just him, all alone in Antarctica. So, as anyone could see, Mawson experiences the most adversity among the three figures for many reasons.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Medical Ethics In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    1564 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rebecca Skloot’s novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, depicts the violation of medical ethics from the patient and researcher perspectives specifically when race, poverty, and lack of medical education are factors. The novel takes place in the southern United States in 1951. Henrietta Lacks is born in a poor rural town, Clover, but eventually moves to urban Turner Station. She was diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins hospital where cells was unknowingly taken from her and used for scientific research. Rebecca Skloot describes this when she writes, “But first—though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting sample or asked she wanted to be a donor—Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta's cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby. Then he placed the samples in a glass dish” (33). The simple act of taking cells, which the physicians did not even think twice about, caused decades

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, was a nonfiction story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Henrietta did not know that her doctor took a sample of her cancer cells a few months before she died. “Henrietta cells that called HeLa were the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory” (Skloot 22). In fact, the cells from her cervix are the most important advances in medical research. Rebecca was interested to write this story because she was anxious with the story of HeLa cells. When she was in biology class, her professor named Donald Defler gave a lecture about cells. Defler tells the story about Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells. However, the professor ended his lecture when he said that Henrietta Lacks was a black woman. In this book, Rebecca wants to tell the truth about the story of Henrietta Lacks during her medical process and the rights for Henrietta’s family after she died.

    Read More

  • Discussing the Bioethical Issues presented in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

    835 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scientists know her as HeLa, the immortal cell line that has been used for numerous scientific achievements, including the polio vaccine and other research with other viruses. They were the first cells to be cloned and used with gene mapping and chromosome staining. They have been used in cancer research and hormone research and drug research. In fact, HeLa cells have been used in over 60,000 research articles (Skloot, 2010). However, the woman behind the cells was cast in the shadows for decades. Henrietta Lacks was a poor African American tobacco farmer from 1950’s Baltimore. After giving birth to her first child, she noticed blood in her urine and went to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. During one of her treatments, cells from her cervix, cancerous and healthy, were removed without her knowledge and permission. These cells were then made into the immortal cell line that has been used widely in research. The unfortunate part of the situation was while scientists were profiting from their work with the HeLa cells, Lacks’ family was living in poverty without proper health insurance or the knowledge of Henrietta’s contribution to science. The case of Henrietta Lacks draws attention to the bioethical issues of informed consent, beneficence, not using people as a means to an end, and spreading knowledge.

    Read More

  • Book Review: The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine having a part of your body taken from you without your permission, and then having those cells that are a part of your body grow and are being processed in labs around the world and then ultimately being used for the highest of research. That is what happens to Henrietta Lacks. In the book, The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks, we see Henrietta Lacks and her families story unravel, the numerous hardships that they faced, and the shocking revelation that their relative cells were being used for research without her consent and theirs.

    Read More

  • Emotions In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    While reading the book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, I had so many emotions running through my mind. I would often think, what if that was my family or me? It is also very different because of the years this happened in. there were a lot of unlawful things going on that should have been against the law but were not at the time. Henrietta, as I read was an amazing woman who has a harsh life and also after she lost her life, it continued to be difficult. Henrietta kept her cancer from her family for some time and as stated in the book it was common for people to keep secrets about medical conditions (Skloot). I think Lacks is am amazing woman, not only for what she unknowingly did for the future of medicine but also as a mother and wife. She was such a strong woman and her legacy carry on and she story will be told all over.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sometimes people cant help but feel entitled to payment when they make a contribution to a money-making prfit, idea or discovery. The issue is that sometimes, those charities are too small and simple to warrant a reward. Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks brings up the problem of sharing a incentive, as many members of the Lacks family feel justifiable of a share in the money made from research done on Henrietta’s cancer cells. By writing about the Lacks family and their knowledge with the Hela cells, Skloot’s readers may see eye to eye on the fact that they deserve compensation. Although, when the facts are taken into consideration, it makes sense that the Lacks’ do not receive money for their mothers big contribution to science. A donor is usually needed for scientists to make important assumptions or discoveries through studying donated cells or even tissue. However, the donor is not necessarily deserving of a share of any of the profits that the scientist earns because the persons role in the research is much less signifgant than many belive and the actual r...

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Henrietta Lacks

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    His piece, however, honored Lacks and explicitly mentioned that no one asked for her or her family’s permission to take her cells, stating that “without … permission … , doctors at Johns Hopkins had collected and saved samples of tissue from her cancerous tumor”. Though both political figures with no personal ties to Henrietta Lacks or her family, it is clear that Hon. Perriello and Hon. Ehrlich had different understandings of the situation and Lacks’ role in it, as made evident by their explanation of it. Once more, it is proven not only that Lacks’ privacy was taken from her when her cells were passed around without her consent, but diction plays a highly significant role in recreating

    Read More

  • Physician-Assisted Suicide and Free Will

    2443 Words  | 5 Pages

    Kass, Leon. "Neither for Love nor Money: Why Doctors Must Not Kill." Public Interest. No. 94. (Winter 1989)

    Read More

  • Henrietta Lacks Ethical Issues

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    What is privacy? Well, it’s the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people. In terms of information, it is the right to have some control over how one’s own personal information is collected and used. This is a right that has been inherently protected by the U.S Constitution, agreed upon by the Supreme Court, and yet, issues around this very topic arise every day. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author Rebecca Skloot, addresses this issue in her story of the women behind the infamous HeLa cells. Her story shows that although privacy is a right that is inherently protected by the law, situations of injustice can still occur. Examples of this in the book include when Henrietta’s cells were given to Dr. Gey without any consent from Day, the situation in which Mr. Golde’s spleen was sold without his permission, as well as when the Lacks family were recontacted and mislead about the reasons they were tested years after Henrietta’s death.

    Read More

  • The Medicalization of Society by Peter Conrad

    1544 Words  | 4 Pages

    Conrad, Peter, and Joseph W. Schneider. 1992. Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. St. Louis: Mosby.

    Read More

  • Ethos in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    The credibility and trustworthiness of a person can be achieved through their achievements and titles. Writers have the ability of achieving this by appealing to the rhetorical strategy ethos. Rebecca Skloot’s inclusion of her knowledge in science to provide her credibility and numerous information of all her characters in the novel helps develop the rhetorical strategy of ethos. Skoot’s implementation of appealing to ethos aids in emphasizing on the credibility of both herself and all the other characters in the novel. She demonstrates this rhetorical strategy by indicating titles and achievements her characters in the novel. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot develops the rhetorical strategy of ethos through the use of her characters in the novel consisting of Skloot herself, George Gey, and the virologist Chester Southam.

    Read More

More about Logic In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Open Document