Referring to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the Lacks family should be compensated financially for the HeLa cells. The first reason the process should happen is the need to develop insurance medicine and guarantee the protection of people from diseases and their consequences. The issue of receiving monetary compensation is connected with the health insurance system since the author asks, “if our mother is so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?” (Skloot) Every family and every individual needs full-fledged health insurance not only in order to guarantee the receipt of monetary compensation. In addition, this insurance will make all processes transparent and regulated by appropriate acts and procedures, which will avoid fraud and manipulation. In this situation, every citizen will be able to feel protected in the medical field, and any donor will be able to count on a legal and honest solution to the issue.
The second reason a family deserves to receive cash in compensation is the need for fairness. The main semantic load of the book is the description of the situation of injustice and poor communication. The problem of the presence of misunderstanding and misleading is relevant since the author states that “people got rich off the mother without us even knowing about them taking her cells.” (Skloot) Injustice, which is particularly related to the health and life of people, has serious consequences, including psychological ones. Considering the point of view of validity and morality, the moment when life and factors related to human health are decided must be competently discussed and communicated to officials and relatives. The family deserves, among other things, moral compensation since the amount of stress that was received as a result of this incident and its consequences is not possible to pass without leaving a trace.
Work Cited
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Pan Macmillan, 2019.