Artifact
Description
As
my artifact for the first part of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks I have chosen an article
detailing the use of informed consent laws in abortion clinics. This article
focuses in particular on South Dakota, who has recently amended their informed
consent laws. The laws are designed to inform patients about the details and
risks of an abortion, as well as make the patient wait 72 hours to proceed with
an abortion after hearing the information. Proponents say the laws are designed
to inform and educate patients, while critics say the laws are designed to
scare women and intimidate them into deciding against an abortion.
Article: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/22/169975954/states-become-battlegrounds-for-nations-deep-abortion-divide
Analysis
In
Part One of The Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks, the issue of informed consent is a major issue in
Henrietta’s care, though not in the same manner as detailed in the above
article. In her case, she was not informed that the medical care she was
receiving was going to render her infertile. She was also not informed that
samples of her tissue were taken from her for use in cell culture experiments.
At
issue here is the use of informed consent by those in power. Henrietta Lacks,
like many poor African-Americans of her time, was simply grateful to receive
free medical attention from the medical professionals at John Hopkins. She
would not have questioned their actions and opinions even if she were capable
of doing so. For some reason, Henrietta was not told she would become infertile
if she received radiation treatment for her cervical cancer. While the book is
inconclusive about why this happened, it is certainly possible that the
doctors, perhaps intentionally, neglected to tell her a serious side effect of
this treatment.
Also
at issue is the use of Henrietta’s cells without her permission. As the book
mentions, the doctors at John Hopkins believed they were entitled to use
patients in their public health ward as test subjects. They were performing
high quality health care for free so they figured it was the least they could
do. Their patients were in no position to protest, since the white medical
professionals intimidated them. Therefore, the doctors did their research
without informing their patients. In Henrietta’s case this became an issue when
her cells spawned the HeLa cell line. It benefited millions of people and
resulted in profits and prestige for many doctors and companies, but
Henrietta’s family never received any recognition or monetary benefit. This is
a clear case of the medical establishment exploiting an African-American
patient.
In
the modern case of informed consent and abortion, politicians are attempting to
use their legislative power to prevent a demographic, in this case women, from
having abortions. It is almost the exact opposite of Henrietta’s case, but it
showcases the same situation: a powerful group attempting to impose their will
on another group through informed consent. While women can still receive an
abortion after waiting, the law certainly seems to be designed to scare women
away and intimidate them from making a choice about their own body.
Questions
I. 1.
Do you think the public health wards at John Hopkins were constructed to
exploit the African-American population around it or to benefit them?
II. 2.
When beneficial medical advancement results from research on an unknowing
patient, with no harm to them and a plausible excuse to do so, is the research
invalid?
III. 3.
In the readings, much was made of Henrietta’s lack of medical knowledge and
general education. The point was that African-American’s lack of knowledge
impaired them in making informed decisions and in avoiding malicious medical
professionals. Today, the public is told to bring up their own opinions and
become educated themselves on their medical conditions. On the other hand, a
medical professional may feel insulted if someone insinuates they do not value
their advice. My question is: what role should patients and doctors play in
their relationship?
IV 4.
While Henrietta received the latest operations and medical techniques, Rebecca
Skloot criticized the overall patient care (time and length of treatment, fewer
pain meds, higher mortality rate) of John Hopkins free medical wards. Do you
think Henrietta would have fared better if she had received treatment in the
white section of the hospital?
As it pertains to your first discussion question I would have to say the John Hopkins started off as a benefit for African-Americans only because John Hopkins that man wanted it to benefit them. As you will see in the book the beginning of John Hopkins was out of donation of the dying Dr. Hopkins, it was one of his last acts of charity toward his fellow man. It did not become a negative place to be until the value of research became more and more profitable. So by exploiting the population around the hospital medical research was preformed. It is hard to say if this would have been different if the community the hospital was still in a poor place but the population was prodominately white rather than black.
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