Category: Weekly Questions

To what extent have our ideas about what’s “normal” created a “disease” of female sexual dysfunction?

How did cultural beliefs about gender shape DES approval and use?

Is birth a women’s issue? How does the fact that birth involves “two patients,” influence perceptions of birth and the nature of maternity care? How are the process of birth and the management of maternal and infant care related to women’s rights?

 

Write a journal response that explores the relationship between a woman and a fetus. Is a woman merely an incubator (a fetal container) for another organism?

Should a woman be compelled to undergo medical treatment if she is pregnant (or be prevented from undergoing treatment)? Should a woman be punished for making decisions (like drinking too much alcohol) that could harm the baby?

I realize these are difficult questions; just do the reading and start to think about these issues. 🙂

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This week you will be reading about some aspects of assisted reproductive technologies, particularly egg donation and egg freezing. Judging from this advertisement from the University of Oregon student newspaper a few years ago, how is the egg donation process being promoted to college-age students? How does this fit in with the other material you’ve read this week?

On page 261, Deborah and Zakariyya visit Lengauer’s lab and see the cells for the first time. How is their interaction with Lengauer different from the previous interactions the family had with representatives of Johns Hopkins? Why do you think it is so different?

Please read the other short articles on the syllabus for this week as well, though they don’t need to be incorporated into this answer (if you see a way to, then that’s fine also; either way). They help put this particular story into a larger context of health inequalities and racism, and they’re also interesting!

For October 14, read the first two sections of the book (to page 176) and answer this question. We will discuss the rest of the book when we meet again on October 18.

The passage in which the initial fated cells were removed from Henrietta Lacks’s body reads as follows (see page 33):

“With Henrietta unconscious on the operating table in the center of the room, her feet in stirrups, the surgeon on duty, Dr. Lawrence Wharton, Jr., sat on a stool between her legs. He peered inside Henrietta, dilated her cervix, and prepared to treat her tumor. But first – though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor – Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta’s cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby. Then he placed the samples in a glass dish.”

Keep in mind that what was done with Henrietta Lacks was not illegal. Many of the laws around informed consent were born out of violations done in the past. But back in 1951, this was not a crime.

Do you think it was wrong of Dr. Wharton to remove the sample tissue in the first place? Was it wrong for Dr. Gey to collect those samples for the purpose of trying to grow them in controlled conditions?

Does the end – i.e., the immeasurable benefit to humankind resulting from those tissue samples – justify the means – i.e., removing tissue from a person without their consent or knowledge?

Linda Logan writes in her essay about bipolar disorder:

“For many people with mental disorders, the transformation of the self is one of the most disturbing things about being ill. And their despair is heightened when doctors don’t engage with the issue, don’t ask about what parts of the self have vanished and don’t help figure out strategies to deal with that loss.”

To what extent was the transformation of one’s “self” the central issue in the other women’s lives we read about this week?