Overstepping Boundaries in Frankenstein And Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

The responsibility people have when they are developing new technology is to not overstep boundaries. In both Frankenstein and The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks tie down with ethics. One can see how science seems to trample human rights. Both Victor in Frankenstein and Scientists in the story of Henrietta Lacks overstep the boundaries of nature by setting to prolong the human life which Victor does by creating life and Scientists by creating immortal cells and playing god. Showing why a creator should understand their place and not go past boundaries and rules to create something.

Frankenstein is not the first story to use scientific experimentation as its method. It presents a framework for narratively examining the morality and ethics of the experiment and experimenter. Science is an exploration of new frontiers, to discover and test new ideas.Which Victor does but he goes a bit too far. He proceeds to break the laws of nature and create life. Which even further puts the blame upon him is where he runs away from the monster to never check where it had gone simply releasing it upon the world. Victors lack of consideration of both the monster and the world he has let the monster loose upon are two examples of him being irresponsible with his technology and making him responsible for his creation.

Scientists were using Henrietta Lacks cells but her family was not aware of it. Lacks cells were making some people such as the pharmaceutical companies rich such as cell banks and biotech companies. Not only did it help gain much profit in the selling of her cells but also progress in the forms of vaccines. All this happening and the creators gave no financial support to the woman’s family or information on what was happening. The creators had plenty of opportunities to fix their wrongs but didn’t for example tinge the family had found out what had been happening they have no approval for this and the Scientists researching this continued to develop her cells into other things. Showing them clearly cross a moral boundary.” ‘…right after she died they called me in the office wanting to get my permission to take a sample of some kind.I decided not to let them’ Jet said the family was angry- angry that Henrietta’s cells were being sold for twenty five dollars a vial,” (Skloot 28) This quote shows how the Creators are clearly responsible for their creation because they had plenty of opportunities to stop and no permission to continue but did anyways. Giving them no excuse for the exploitation of Henrietta’s cells.

Frankenstein and the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks are taking a step further in science. Both texts tie down with ethics. One can see how science seems to trample over human rights. “All I remember is that she had this disease, and right after she died… wanting to get my permission to take a sample of some kind, I decided to not let them.” (Skloot 28) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, revealed the ethical dilemmas interlaced with HeLa cells and medical research more broadly which were concerns of consent, privacy and compensation, among others. In Frankenstein Victor conducts a gruesome experiment in secrecy without letting others know, and with no consideration of the possible consequences. Frankenstein creates the monster simply because he can. This turns out to be a mistake for him since his creation goes on a vengeful murder spree over the course of the next few years.Victor wanted to create something never done before, he was overstepping the boundaries of god. Which is like the scientists when they took henrietta’s cells, then created cells that were eternal.

The responsibility people have when they are developing new technology is to not overstep boundaries. In both Frankenstein and The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks it’s easy to see how these texts tie down to ethics. The texts exemplify crossing boundaries like the scientists in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks when they trampled over her rights yet achieved medical advances. In Frankenstein he prolonged human life by creating the creature. These Show why a creator should understand their place and not go past boundaries and rules to create something.