Henrietta Lacks and the Meaning of Death

Date: February 20th, 2013
Duration: 1h:13m:29s

In the course taught by Professor Pecorino on Death and Dying, Henrietta Lacks made a contribution. In exploring the many different meanings of human death the use made of the cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks illustrated the limitations of one approach to the meaning of human death. The presentation in this workshop will raise the issue of the concept of human death and its relation to pronouncing humans to be dead and to the relation of different criteria for human death to different uses for dead human bodies including the transplantation of organs and tissue.