In Part II: Death of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot illustrates the years succeeding Henrietta’s death. The immediate impact of HeLa, Henrietta’s immortal cells, on the cell-culture industry, and additional misleading truths of the care displayed by Johns Hopkins and Dr. Gey in Henrietta’s medical case are put on full display. At first glance, it is very clear that HeLa and Henrietta Lacks are two completely different living beings. Not only from the point of view in physical health and welfare, as HeLa is booming and Henrietta’s family is struggling in poverty, yet from multiple philosophical points of view it can be concluded that the separation of HeLa and Henrietta may not be justifiable. 

From the utilitarian scope, HeLa being distributed, leading to profits in the cell-culture industry and medical breakthroughs, may be reasonable at the very low cost of Henrietta’s family (many suffering from health conditions). HeLa was distributed not only around the nation but eventually around the globe due to Dr. Gey’s initial findings of being able to ship it successfully. At this point in the novel, the researchers and doctors see HeLa as an immortal gold mine of biomedical findings to be “pushed and shoved” to its limit. The cells grew to the point of “general scientific property”, according to Skloot (104). The cell-culture industry is booming due to Henrietta Lacks’s cells. Because of this gold mine characteristic, the overall benefit and good society receives is monumental. However, this utilitarian perspective seen by Dr. Gey and many other doctors disregards the moral beliefs, more specifically autonomy and “justice as fairness”, being violated during Henrietta’s care and the consequences her family must now face.

Dr. Gey’s actions to distribute HeLa already violated Henrietta’s, alongside her family’s, autonomy. Her cells were taken without her true, informed consent. This made the audience already question Dr. Gey’s moral thinking. However, during this second part, Skloot paints a very different picture of him. She makes him the “hero” by not saying and or mentioning Henrietta in interviews. From my point of view, this is immoral justice for Henrietta and her family. The “justice as fairness” policy is being violated; they must suffer from poverty when they have an opportunity to gain profit, yet that opportunity is unattainable (without true mention of Henrietta till twenty years later). Furthermore, after the death of Henrietta, the importance of her family’s autonomy increased when Dr. Gey wanted to perform an autopsy and needed her husband’s consent. Yet, Day, her husband, did not even know of what Johns Hopkins wanted. Due to Dr. Gey’s and Johns Hopkins’s mishaps, their action to not include Henrietta Lacks with HeLa is not morally valid. 

In section two of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, Skloot investigates and scrutinizes the intersection of personal and scientific ‘ownership’ and the somewhat ironic repercussions that the HeLa situation has had on the scientific community vs. Henrietta’s family.  To explore the ethical question of scientific ownership, I will focus mainly on Dr. Charles Pomerat’s classification of HeLa cells as “general scientific property”, and how this designation has impacted-and could continue to impact- both the scientific world and patients/their families.

In Part Two, Skloot quotes Dr. Charles Pomerat on page 104 as saying that Gey should have finished his own HeLa research before “Releasing HeLa to the general public since once released, it becomes general scientific property” (p.104). Unsurprisingly, this immediately raises questions about this concept. A quick search defines this term as “[a community’s] absolute ownership, usually of personal property, with the right of complete dominion over it”. In HeLa’s case, this right of complete dominion was used to allow doctors to buy, sell, and perform millions of tests on reproduced HeLa cells. This leads us to the unavoidable question of ownership. In Henrietta’s case, the cells were not considered to be “hers” once they were removed- they instead became a general experimentation asset to the medical community. In other words, the tissue that used to be intertwined with Henrietta was removed and became, instead, a separate ‘thing’ that was considered completely separate from the person from whom it was taken. This new object is now the property of the medical community and any benefit or profit made from it does not benefit the patient or in this case, the family of Henrietta (as she passed away.” This is a dangerous precedent to set, in my opinion, because it sacrifices the informed consent and personal ownership of one person for the “general good” of a community. However, once this vague precedent is set, the community which benefits would often do so at the expense of others.

This complete separation of the HeLa cells from the Lacks family immediately presents itself as an ethical issue, especially when you compare the massive, profitable impact HeLa had on the biomedical field and the world as a whole. The book repeatedly mentions the massive industries born from Henrietta’s cells, notably cell culturing centers, which now reap millions in sales and exert large influences over scientific fields. However, at the same time that HeLa was starting this, Lacks family relatives were dying of TB and other preventable illnesses because of inadequate healthcare. Examining this through Utilitarianism, it, at first glance, seems justifiable: it produces the most happiness for the most people. However, the lack of respect and ownership given to Henrietta and her family complies with a dangerous double standard: the benefit of one community (science) is more valuable than the utility of another (Lacks and other African-American patients at the time). One must realize that by only looking at the utility gained by the medical community and the potential people their HeLa research could help, they are overlooking and ignoring the underlying issue of inadequate moral respect, communication, and access to proper care for the Lacks and other families.

In Part II of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot delves deeper into the sharp contrast between the life of HeLa cells and that of Henrietta and her family. While HeLa cells lived a flourishing life and legacy far beyond Henrietta’s own, Henrietta and her family faced numerous healthcare struggles that only seem more unethical in light of their initial ownership of Henrietta’s scientifically renowned biological material. After Henrietta’s death, Henrietta’s family consented to an autopsy, but both Henrietta and her family were never informed of the removal of her cancer cells for medical research. Even after HeLa cells made huge strides in the medical world and people from all over came to interview Henrietta’s family, Henrietta’s family still had little information about what HeLa cells were actually being used for. On top of this withholding of information, Henrietta’s family constantly struggled to afford much needed healthcare, which was unfortunately ironic considering the impact of HeLa cells. 

I think that this distinct contrast results from what can essentially be boiled down to the perception of colored people at the time as merely a means to an end for selfish, and often economic, motivations. This view of Henrietta’s biological material as a transactional item, especially as it became more and more widespread in the scientific community, diminished Henrietta’s worth as a human, which Gey’s assistant Mary actually points out with her observation of the chipped red polish on Henrietta’s toenails — “I thought, Oh jeez, she’s a real person.” It’s evident that this objectifying of patients, especially colored people, for medical research wasn’t uncommon, as Sonny tells Skloot “John Hopkins was known for experimentin on black folks. They’d snatch em off the street…”

With this in mind, so many other actions of the people involved with HeLa cells become contentious. For instance, Gey’s claim of protection of privacy for Henrietta and her family is greatly undermined by his failure to receive informed consent in the first place and also the lack of compensation to Henrietta’s family. This puts into question: when Gey claimed to protect Henrietta’s privacy, was he honest or was it more about claiming ownership over HeLa cells by not recognizing Henrietta’s contribution? Is it ever ethical for anyone to claim ownership over someone’s biological material other than that someone and perhaps his or her family? And finally, to what extent can utilitarianism justify these members of the scientific community’s actions?

The second part of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, traces the different paths taken by HeLa and Henrietta Lacks. The immortal cells, called “HeLa”, become an essential tool for scientific research in countless fields. Initially, the cells are distributed freely by Dr. Gey, the scientist who harvested the sample. But demand grows quickly and the cells are soon the center of an entirely new area of scientific study, cell culture. The cells and the industry quickly become profitable. HeLa cells eventually become “general scientific property” (Skloot 104). While HeLa and scientific research are booming, Henrietta’s family struggles in difficult living situations, lacking money, education or most importantly, healthcare. This shows the completed division between Henrietta Lacks, the African American woman from Turner’s Station, into HeLa, cells only known for their furious division and accompanying range of discoveries.

Pomerat’s declaration that HeLa cells belong to the entire scientific community represents a very utilitarian view of research. From the utilitarian perspective, the free distribution of these cells results in huge benefits at relatively low cost. At this point, these cells are largely viewed as an object–a cargo that should be shipped carefully, a substrate that can be endlessly poked and prodded. Because of the biomedical success of HeLa cells, they contributed to the overall good of society. This was likely the thought process followed by Gey and other researchers who were instrumental in HeLa’s spread. This utilitarian approach follows the methods of collaboration and sharing of new discoveries common in the sciences.

However, the utilitarian theory quickly breaks down upon inspection of Henrietta’s children and family following her death. The argument for universal healthcare can also be made using the ideas of maximizing utility. If the entire population has access to the same service meant to maintain a basic quality of life, then the quality of life of the population should improve, a positive outcome from a utilitarian perspective. The contradiction comes when looking at the Lacks’ family decades after HeLa flourished. Much of the family is plagued by serious health conditions, yet none of them have reliable access to healthcare. This begs the question of the universality of a theory. Would utilitarians allow for this type of double standard? On one hand, the distribution of Henrietta Lacks’ cells without her consent can be brushed off as being overwhelmingly beneficial for society. But these utilitarian principles not apply when trying to maximize the good of the very people involved (indirectly) in remarkable scientific breakthroughs. Are there ulterior motives in following some a moral theory in some realms but not others, potentially for financial or professional gain? This represents the issue that arises when trying to apply abstract moral theories directly to concrete applications–clear stances and principles appear to soften or even contradict.

Two main things struck me within this part of the biography. First of which is the subject surrounding the requirement of consent after her death in comparison to before. I found this an especially difficult subject to get my head around. Thinking from a logical viewpoint, it would appear to make more sense that consent would be required whilst the person is still alive and then not required when dead. However, here this is not the case. This subject falls under autonomy – surely it a person has the right to self-govern there-own body, and therefore consent is required for the harvesting of their cells? On the back of this, does someone dead still have autonomy? After thinking about this, I could see more clearly why Henrietta’s family were unsure about giving consent to the doctors.

Another area that causes concern in this part of the biography was numerous articles that were published or going to be. In these articles, it was common that Henrietta’s name was mistaken for another name or that her name was not included at all for privacy. I have less strong feelings towards her name being left because I agree with privacy for the family. However, when relating to the changing of her name, personal issues begin to arise. Primarily of these is that in doing so it feels that the humanistic nature of the case it was taken out. It feels that there is no care given towards Henrietta or the sacrifice that she gave. It makes her seem like a nobody because the writers could not take the small amount of time to correct themselves. I find it merely disappointing. It makes me think about the medical system as a whole. How much do they care, or are you simply another task that they must complete? Another potential warehouse of parts.

The second part of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks focusses primarily on the time and events that take place after the passing of Henrietta – including the mass production of her cells, the news article written about the cells and the discoveries that came as a result of her cells. In this part, it talks about a polio outbreak that Henrietta’s cells helped to find a vaccine for as well as the discovery that humans have forty-six chromosomes. It also shows the interaction between Henrietta’s family and the doctors, who due to her passing now required consent to harvest more cells.

In conclusion, the second part of the biography is one that sparks personal issues for me over the treatment of Henrietta’s name as well as arguments surrounding patient autonomy. Should consent always be required when a person is alive? Should it be when dead if it is deemed to be for the greater good of humanity? In the eyes of medical professionals, are we just a warehouse of potential parts they can use to fix others? These are just questions that came to my mind when reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks part II.