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| California Supreme Court Justice Edward Panelli wrote the majority decision in the Moore v. Regents of the University of California decision |
Do you agree with the California Supreme Court’s ruling on this issue?
Click here to read a 2006 New York Times article by Rebecca Skloot which discusses this landmark decision.
I think people should be aware of who has their body parts and what they are doing with them. Hospitals have no problem sending out bills, I'm sure it wouldn't be a burden to send out a permission slip to use ones body. As for the saying “When tissues are removed from your body, with or without your consent, any claim you might have had to owning them vanishes” (205), I do not agree with that. I see it as stealing if the donor has not given permission to the doctors.
ReplyDeleteMorgan Hicks
I agree with Morgan one hundred percent. I believe that taking a body part without permission is the same as taking someones car without permission. Evidently, I also do not agree with the Supreme Courts ruling. It surprises me that they would agree that this is something to go unpunished.
DeleteI would also disagree with the ruling. When reading this chapter it was really surprising that the court ruled in favor of the doctor. I think you should have 100 percent control over what happens to your body. Like Morgan said, it couldn't be that difficult for a permission slip to be sent out to patients.
ReplyDeleteMatthew Parham
I too agree that doing anything to someones body, or tissues without their consent is wrong.
ReplyDeleteStormy Wigley
If something was removed from your body with permission, you should no longer have any claimed owning it. When a person has his or her tonsils or anything else removed, there's no value In that person keeping them. If somehow that person's tonsils were ultimately used in a multimillion dollar breakthrough, that person already freely relinquished his or her tonsils. If someone willingly threw away a piece of jewelry worth a large sum of money, not knowing its value,and someone else found and sold it, does the person who threw it out deserve any money? In a circumstance where someone were critically ill and something had to be removed from his or her body, did that person need to sign a permission slip for that harmful something to be removed? Would that person want that harmful something after it as removed?
ReplyDeleteAllon Gillispie
I agree completely with Allon. If you willingly give up something, you have no right to it afterward. If however, you knew that the doctors wanted something from you, you could easily sell it to them for a fraction of the profits. Henrietta Lacks' cells were first taken because it was standard operating procedure to do so, not because everyone knew her cells were different.
ReplyDeleteCaleb Savage
I completely agree. Yes, as a part of your body you should have control over what happens and where and why things are done. Yet in the process of losing cells or blood samples to a doctor or researcher, who took them for testing for your benefit, one should be willing to allow other tests to be run. If for some crazy, lucky reason your samples should contribute to a breakthrough in science, be proud that your body could benefit others.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Allon (and Caleb and Erin by proxy). If something is removed, generally there was a reason--either medical or cosmetic--for it to come out. We're not talking about selling your left kidney, here, this was something that, presumably, you wanted gone--or needed gone. Which brings me to Henrietta. We've been seeing comments on all the previous chapters about how the doctors were wrong, how it's in error that her family is poor, etc. If I could just rant for a bit... how is it that we're alright with this line of talk, putting Johns Hopkins at fault and that... and simultaneously making comments like the three above mine? I'd honestly like you guys' opinions on this. What do you three think should have been done about Henrietta's case? I personally see absolutely no difference between her cervical tumor and a pair of inflamed adenoids... who's with me?
ReplyDeleteAnybody want to weigh in on Marissa's question?
ReplyDeleteIf you saw a scientific study that showed that getting permission from patients to use tissue removed from their body resulted in fewer tissues being available and fewer lives saved as a result, would it change your view on this issue at all? Is getting permission worth losing lives?
ReplyDelete