Amendment to the Bill of Rights
Science Project
Amendment #1
- There must be consent of the patient for a doctor or scientist to use the cells and/or information of a human being. If there is not agreement from the patient, the cells and information must not be used.
Rationale:
- If a doctor was to take and use someones cells without their consent, then their rights would be violated and could be sued in court.
- Henrietta Lacks is a great example for this. Her cells were used and taken without her consent and it made many people mad. With this amendment, Henrietta would have to agree to having her cells taken instead of her not agreeing or even knowing.Amendment #2
- When cells are taken from a patient after their consent, the patient must get 7% of any sort of profit that comes from it. This amount can RARELY be raised if there has been more of a major contribution from the patient and/or their family.
Rationale:
- The patient will now get money from something that they contributed to.
- This also happened with Henrietta Lacks. She and her family received absolutely no money, though there was a ton made off of her cells. They at least deserved a small portion of that money, and they got none of it.
Amendment #3
- If taking cells from a patient, doctors must notify the patient that they are doing so.
Rationale:
- With this amendment, people would at least know that there cells were being taken. This stops doctors from just taking cells without telling the patient.
- When Henrietta Lacks had her cells taken, she was never notified. This caused a lot of anger. With this amendment, that would have never taken place.
Amendment #4
- If cells are being taken from a deceased human, their family must be notified and it must be approved by the family of that person. If there is no found family, then the cells may or may not be able to be used, depending on the importance of them.
Rationale:
- This amendment allows families to know what is happening to their deceased family member and there is still a decision that gets to be made.
- If there was a dead person and after the death, the doctor doing the autopsy found something very important to science and needed the cells, he would have to ask the family first
Amendment #5
- All amendments about the possession of cells apply to people of all ages, and cannot be ignored because of the age of the person, even if they are younger than 18.
Rationale:
- This would make these rights apply to everyone, unlike most of the other amendments that don’t necessarily apply to everyone.
- If a nine year was to have her cells taken, she would still have to be notified and asked for consent just like all adults, her age does not matter.