Focus on Writer's Craft: Persuasive Essay Henrietta Lacks Essay Prompt: Let's say that next week, you go in for your first dermatologist appointment, because you found an unusual spot on your collarbone that bleeds every time you pull on or take off a shirt over that spot. Upon visiting the physician, you are told that the spot looks precancerous, and that it will need to be removed. You schedule an appointment for removal of the spot the next morning, and you go home to rest and prepare for the outpatient surgery the next day.
Four weeks after the tissue was removed from your collarbone area, you receive a phone call from the pathology department at the dermatologist's office to request that you come in for a follow-up visit. The dermatologist states that while the tissue she removed from your skin was not cancerous, the cells were unlike any that the office had seen before, and that they would like to do further study on them. They ask for your consent to release your medical history and information as part of the study within the clinic you visited. Only those portions of your medical history which are relevant to your diagnosis will be used in the study: for example, the size and type of tissue removed, your family history, and the official analysis of the tissue recorded by the pathologist.
Decide whether or not you will allow the clinic to conduct the study on your tissue, based on the information you are given, and support your decision based on the textual evidence we have read in this week's texts about Henrietta Lacks.
Length: 350-500 words, (about a page to a page and a half), single-spaced