Movie Review On The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks (Movie Review Sample)

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Very little was known about Henrietta Lacks life before the discovery of her unique cells. She was a woman from Baltimore who died at the age of 31 after going through unsuccessful treatment of cancer (Skloot 3). Henrietta Lacks commonly known as Hela was in a segregated ward of Johns Hopkins hospital fighting for her life; it’s during this period that Hela’s cells were taken without her consent or that of her family. Her cells were extraordinary since multiplied in large numbers and were used in all manner of scientific research. Her cells have been shot in space, tested with a mixture of other hormones, exposed to radiation and mixed with other infectious agents (Skloot 3). Hela’s cells were very valuable as they have been used to develop countless discoveries among them to develop the vaccine for polio, tease mitosis choreography and analyze and visualize different chromosomes. All this information was gathered from Rebecca’s Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
There are a number of ethical issues that arise whereby her cells test results were published on a public database without Lack’s consent or that of her family. This clearly demeans Lack’s privacy rights and that of her family by exposing them to the public without their consent (Skloot 9). Even though by then the patient’s rights and responsibility were not clear from the movie we tend to relate to the current situation and the consequences that come with such an offense. Those who infringe the rights of patients should be brought arraigned in court and charged.
Ethicists will also argue that Henrietta rights were violated when her cells were removed without her consent. Patients must be involved in whatever process that takes place concerning their health and in turn sign the consent form (Skloot 17). Patients who are not in a position to understand and comprehend the course of action to be taken, their family members play a key role in their behalf. They are provided with a detailed form of concept read and understand before signing and in case there are things which are not clear they are allowed to ask and clarify. All this procedure was no followed on Henrietta’s case and instead, things were done behind her back.
Lastly, the ethic issue that arises in Henrietta’s case includes the fact that her tissues were used on research benefits and even sold without her or her family benefitting in any way (Skloot 63). The cells were sold to researcher worldwide and generated millions over a number of years but her family were not involved in the whole process. Back then Lack’s family was not in a position to access basic care but all these illegal activities were done behind their back. All these issues have been related to lack of respect and justice as well as the imposition of racism and social class to Ms. Henrietta and her family.
One of the classical theories that are clearly displayed in the movie is deontology, which stipulates that the morality of an action should be bounded to whether the action is wrong or right based on a number of rules instead of the results of the action (Skloot 19). This classical theory clearly applies to Henrietta’s story which shows that it was wrong to get cells from Lack’s body without her consent even if the cells were used for the good of ...