>

I think the opposition here is, where do we draw the line? If you just open the floodgates for descendants of people who didn't consent to testing before 'x' date, it'll be a madhouse of people clamoring for their reparations money. Whereas if we don't set that precedent, some (dead) people won't get compensation, but neither does anyone else, whose claim may or may not be legitimate. And then we can put the whole thing behind us and move forward together, having learned from our ancestor's mistakes.
and the practice of using patient biopsy tissue for research was relatively routine. 

Do you have any information regarding legal patient consent requriements in this matter? As far as I know, all of this happened without Lacks' consent.
EDIT: clarified legal requriements >

That was the controversy. I read the book on her and the it all happened without her consent nor knowledge. It seems valid to want compensation for that >

At the time, no one was getting consent. Shouldn’t everyone be compensated? Isn’t better medicine a compensation itself? >

But I think, or at least hope, we can all acknowledge that that was a bad practice. Does the fact that an organization wronged someone within the confines of the law necessitate that they should never have to make amends? The topic of reparations today is a controversial one, but I think if we simplified it by looking at immediately after slavery was abolished, I think most people would agree to a system where the slave owners paid reparations for their ill gotten gains under slavery. Granted, we are about one human lifetime out from Henrietta's death, but it is still a shorter period of time than slavery and her descendents could undeniably have benefited from her being fairly compensated. The Constitution specifies you can't go to jail for an act that became illegal after you did it, but you need not break the law to owe damages in civil court.