The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

Lefkowitz wrote, “Every human being has an inalienable right to determine what shall be done with his own body. These patients then had a right to know … the contents of the syringe: and if this knowledge was to cause fear and anxiety or make them frightened, they had a right to be fearful and frightened and thus say NO to the experiment.”

If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?”

The judges wrote, “A patient must have the ultimate power to control what becomes of his or her tissues. To hold otherwise would open the door to a massive invasion of human privacy and dignity in the name of medical progress.”