- What is the Topic?
The objective of this paper is to discuss a selected topic in the field of ethics. The selected topic to be discussed was the ethical validity of the principle that suggests that the good of many outweighs the good of one. This paper will revolve around this ethical dilemma and its applicability in Henrietta Lacks’ case, perhaps even in the case of her family.
- How is Henrietta and her family involved?
The bottom line that makes this paper relevant to the principle that suggests that the good of the many outweighs the good of one is the fact that Henrietta Lacks was abused and was deprived of her rights as a patient, and even as a person, by a group of researchers and medical practitioners from John Hopkins medical institution reportedly led by Dr. George Gey and Dr. Richard TeLinde. It all started when the African American Henrietta Lacks visited John Hopkins medical institution to seek medical consult and was diagnosed with a malignant cervical cancer. Dr. George extracted samples of cancerous cervical cells from Henrietta during her first few visits. She knew that something was to be extracted from her as indicated in the medical consent form but it was not clear whether she fully understood the consequences of the procedure and whether it violated any of his rights, something which the doctors failed to do as the medical consent form was evidently vaguely made.
- What is the history behind the case?
It would be a good idea to start by giving out a few vital information about Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was not really her real name; her real name was Loretta Pleasant; she was born on the 1st of August 1920 somewhere in Roanoke, Virginia; more importantly, she was an African American (Black American). She did not really get to experience how to be raised by both a mother and a father because her mother died after giving birth to one of her siblings when she was 4 years old after which her father moved the entire family to a town in Clover, Virginia.
Aside from the fact that she got engaged and married, and had children with David “Day” Lacks, who was her cousin, there were not a lot of ethically-related events that took place during Henrietta Lacks’ childhood. Most of them took place after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, particularly when she already started getting treatments for her malignant tumor at Johns Hopkins medical institution. Readers who were able to read the book would surely be able to spot a lot of loopholes with regards to how Henrietta Lacks was handled during her first few visits and eventual admission at John Hopkins medical institution. It would be important to note, however that ethics-based patient practices and other forms of patient rights, which are heavily and strictly enforced these days, are not that common in the 1950s, especially when we consider that the patient is an African American.
- What are the ethical issues you will discuss?
Ethics is a term used in the field of philosophy to describe various theories and principles that are highly focused on the systematization and on the process of giving definition to things that may be right or wrong. Ethics has been around for centuries and has been used since the time of the greatest philosophers like Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, just to name a few. In the simplest of terms, ethics is the process of delineating what is right from what is wrong and more often than not, this study ends up doing just that. It can be asserted that a world rich in races, cultures, and traditions is also a world rich in moral diversity. In a highly morally diverse world, instances of moral disputes usually sparked by the impression that one person or a group of persons committed a wrong conduct—at least based on the people who perceived and or detected that wrong conduct, are not uncommon. In a world like that, just like the world we currently live in, ethics can be of great use. There are various branches of ethics; some of the main branches are meta-ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics, and descriptive ethics. In this case however, ethics is not the only applicable thing as other factors such as race, patient rights (e.g. patient to practitioner confidentiality, and the different rights of a patient) also came into play. The ethical issues that will be discussed here are the rightness and wrongness of what the researchers from Johns Hopkins did to Henrietta, or at least to her cells.
II. Interested Parties and their Responsibilities and Obligations
- Primary Protagonists
In this case, it would only be logical to think that the protagonist in the story of Henrietta Lacks was Rebecca, since she was the person making all the effort to figure out and document what really happened to Henrietta and the cervical cancer cells that were extracted from her. However, since she was also the author of the paper and choosing her to be the protagonist would create some bias at some point, it would be wise to choose another candidate to be a protagonist. The next viable candidate to be a protagonist would be Henrietta Lacks himself. She may be the one whose rights are being violated but that does not disqualify her from being the protagonist. In fact, in most drama fictional stories, the one who is oppressed is usually the protagonist. In this case, the perfect candidate would be Henrietta Lacks.
- Others Directly Involved
The two persons who we can consider to be directly involved in the story of Henrietta Lacks and the story of how her cancer cells were turned into profits would be Dr. Richard TeLinde and Dr. George Gey, both of whom were involved in the extraction of the cancerous cervical tissues, and the process of putting radium tubes into her cervix as a conventional form of cancer treatment. Based on their actions and motives in the story, it would appear that these two, together with all the people whom they worked with at Johns Hopkins medical institution, were the antagonists in the story. Rebecca, the author of the book, which at the same time, is also the narrator, may also be considered to be a character who was directly affected by the turn of events and the actions that the characters committed.
- Other Persons Indirectly Involved
Since the purpose of the controversially unethical actions that the medical professionals and researchers at Johns Hopkins committed was to gather fame for making a breakthrough in the field of cancer and even genetic technology at a relatively early stage during the 1950s, we can consider the people in the society, especially the ones who benefited greatly from the medical and cancer research breakthrough caused by Henrietta Lacks’ cancer cells, to be the persons indirectly affected by the incident. Henrietta’s family may also be considered to be another group indirectly affected by the sequence of events that happened even though most of them were not really fully aware what happened and what rights were violated.
III. Consequences of Various Actions
- Consequences of the Course of Action I would have Recommended
If given the time to turn back time and make an influence on the turn of events that happened that led to Henrietta Lacks’ death and the grievance of her family because of her death and the injustice that happened, I would do everything in my power to prevent all the wrong things from happening by taking action at the time when it all started, during Henrietta’s first few visits at the Johns Hopkins medical institute to get a diagnosis and undergo her first few treatment sessions. In that case, I would have asked Henrietta Lacks to review her rights as a patient and make sure that those rights do not get violated in any of her encounters with the abusive doctors and researchers from Johns Hopkins.
Even in the absence of any patient rights violation and other forms of ethical violations committed against her, Henrietta would still have turned dead because what she had was a rapidly spreading malignant cervical cancer. There was simply nothing that doctors at that time could have done to successfully treat the underlying condition and prevent her from dying. Maybe, just maybe, that was the reason why the doctors and the research team at Johns Hopkins decided to take advantage of that inevitable scenario—that Henrietta would eventually die, and instead turn her life into a significant contribution to the cancer and cell technology research that had the potential of helping millions of people in the future.
- Consequences if other choices/actions are taken
There can be many consequences of the course of action that I would have recommended and those actions would most probably create conflict with the good of one and the good of many principle. Firstly, the breakthroughs in cervical cancer research as well as genetic technology and cell production and preservation outside a living organism would have been impossible if not for the sacrifices that Henrietta Lacks made—specifically, the HeLa which was the name given to the cancer cells extracted and preserved by the research staff at Johns Hopkins. This is where the principle of the good of one versus the good of many perfectly fits. Would it be righter to let Henrietta Lacks receive all the suffering just so the researchers could make the breakthrough in cancer and cell research technology that millions of people would probably need in the future? According to John Stuart Mill, one of the most prominent proponents of the principle of Utilitarianism, a famous principle in ethics, the good of the many will always outweigh the good of one.
Now there are only two sides or two possible courses of action that could be take in this case. Either I intervene by informing Henrietta of the possible future consequences of whatever decision she was making or I let things happen in which case Henrietta would appear to be the one who is abused. The consequence of this would be John Hopkins would be able to go unpunished despite the abusive and unethical actions that they were doing.
IV. Conclusions
In general, I would have suggested that Henrietta review the informed and medical consents she signed prior to the procedures she underwent at Johns Hopkins. While it is true that without the cancer cells extracted from her through medically and morally unethically ways, the discovery of modern cancer-fighting and cell production and storage technologies that have reportedly helped researchers and scientists develop cures and other alternatives for a wide range of diseases would have been impossible, it does not give anyone the right to violate the rights of one Henrietta Lacks, even though she is an African American and is diagnosed with a terminal illness—cancer. I highly support the idea behind utilitarianism—that the good of the many should always be put first before the good of one. However, it has to be made sure that the person who made the real sacrifices would receive the credit that is due to them. Clearly, that did not happen in Henrietta’s case. Her rights were not only violated. The researchers who benefited a lot from HeLa—the name of the cells extracted from her, chose not to disclose the origin of the case and how such a huge leap of knowledge was made possible. They intentionally took all the credit and glory for themselves. This is why in Henrietta’s case, I would have to disagree with the idea of utilitarianism because there was not just one but two violations committed against her. One violation for the benefit of many would be acceptable, as stated by the principles of utilitarianism, but the second and the following violations, were just plain cold, unreasonable and unjustifiable, no matter how hard we may defend such acts using utilitarianism and other forms of ethical principles.
Works Cited
Skloot, Rebecca. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." Broadway Books; Reprint Edition (2011): 400.
