Henrietta Lacks
Spencer Knight
Summer Reading
8-15-14
Religious Faith I am Catholic so I believe in a just and fair world. In this story, it sounds far from just that. In this story, racism is still a big thing around the time this story takes place. Henrietta is a poor black woman who is treated unfairly in the Hopkins hospital due to that fact she is black. She could have possibly been saved and probably would have if she was white. Her cells were stolen and the Lacks family did not even know about until HeLa cells were on the front pages on the newspapers. I personally think that by the end of the story, the Lacks family should have been paid at least, at least a fourth of all the money that was made from Henrietta’s cells. My faith would be strongly against how this family had been treated throughout the story before any type of recognitions were given to Henrietta and not just here cells which were called HeLa cells so almost no one knew her name, even students learning about the cells in school. My feelings and beliefs towards the cells compared to Deborah and Zakariyya are similar in some ways, but not all. I believed that Henrietta’s cells should have been experimented and research on for humanity’s sake. Deborah and did not particularly have any thought towards this while Zakariyya was against it, but Deborah thought that Henrietta should get as much recognition as possible. I believed that they should get some compensation for Henrietta’s cells getting stolen and no permission to do experiments and research on them. Deborah did not want any money, just Henrietta getting recognition and Zakariyya thought they should get all the money made from them selling Henrietta’s cells. I thought that even though Henrietta was basically killed, that her cells would be what she would always live on as. Deborah had the same belief while Zakariyya wanted nothing to do with that. The healing scene really summed up why Deborah was always paranoid and a bit crazy
Summer Reading
8-15-14
Religious Faith I am Catholic so I believe in a just and fair world. In this story, it sounds far from just that. In this story, racism is still a big thing around the time this story takes place. Henrietta is a poor black woman who is treated unfairly in the Hopkins hospital due to that fact she is black. She could have possibly been saved and probably would have if she was white. Her cells were stolen and the Lacks family did not even know about until HeLa cells were on the front pages on the newspapers. I personally think that by the end of the story, the Lacks family should have been paid at least, at least a fourth of all the money that was made from Henrietta’s cells. My faith would be strongly against how this family had been treated throughout the story before any type of recognitions were given to Henrietta and not just here cells which were called HeLa cells so almost no one knew her name, even students learning about the cells in school. My feelings and beliefs towards the cells compared to Deborah and Zakariyya are similar in some ways, but not all. I believed that Henrietta’s cells should have been experimented and research on for humanity’s sake. Deborah and did not particularly have any thought towards this while Zakariyya was against it, but Deborah thought that Henrietta should get as much recognition as possible. I believed that they should get some compensation for Henrietta’s cells getting stolen and no permission to do experiments and research on them. Deborah did not want any money, just Henrietta getting recognition and Zakariyya thought they should get all the money made from them selling Henrietta’s cells. I thought that even though Henrietta was basically killed, that her cells would be what she would always live on as. Deborah had the same belief while Zakariyya wanted nothing to do with that. The healing scene really summed up why Deborah was always paranoid and a bit crazy