Legal Ownership Of One's Own Cells

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these lucrative results he sued for his share of the profits. The California Supreme Court, however, rejected his suit, holding that Moore did not have a property interest in the cell line developed by his doctor and that his rights to privacy and dignity were sufficiently protected by the doctrine of informed consent. The court also pointed out that certain laws seem designed to prevent patients from retaining their organs after their removal”(Devine). According to Devine, since Moore’s cells were removed from his body he legally had no control over them anymore: not only did he not have control over them, whatever the scientist made from those cells the scientist had legal rights to them and the profits they made, this act is known as the Materials Transfer. Yes, it does seem unfair to Moore to not get any money that was made off of his cells, but he still was informed that Golde, his doctor who was conducting research on his cells, was going to take his cells and ...

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if Henrietta Lacks had the rights of her own cells and tissues we would not have many things that we have today. Many people believed that the scientists took her cells to make money off of them but, “for scientists, growing cells took so much work that they couldn’t get much research done. So the selling of cells was really just for the sake of science, and weren’t a lot for profits” (Skloot). After all the years of trying to keep cells alive outside of the body they finally were able to with HeLa cells and that led to them finding out many new things. With the help of HeLa cells they were able to “cut HeLa cells and exposed them to endless toxins, radiation and infection. ...

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