Learning about vaccinations and their correlations this past week reminded me of a high school class I had long ago. There was a unit on eugenetics in the eighth grade where my teacher Mr. Howk showed us the movie Gattaca. Gattaca exists in a fictional world where parents can choose what traits they want their children to have and scientists can alter the zygote so that can happen. Mr. Howk explained that this would be the greatest thing scientists could achieve, if this were to become real. “We could get rid of mental and physical disorders while children are still in the womb! It’s been proven that stealing is a mental disorder – kleptomania – so maybe other negative things could be mental disorders too! We could get rid of thieves and murderers and homosexuals and gypsies and Jews!” Of course, we were all shocked by this sudden change of direction and stopped taking notes to look up at him. He was completely straight-faced. “And that’s why,” he continued, “eugenics would also be extremely dangerous and negative as well.” His point was that any large amount of power in the wrong hands could be dangerous and that, especially when it comes to science, we should all avoid extremes and be careful not to ‘play God’. My first reaction …show more content…
Choosing not to get vaccinated negatively effects you and those around you, decreases our growing potential toward herd immunity, and “actually leave[s] the door open to outbreaks of diseases that have been all but eradicated by modern medicine” (Healthline). For example, “in developing countries, one in every four children born annually will not be vaccinated . . . so, each day, 4,000 – 8,000 people, mainly children, die from vaccine-preventable diseases” (Ulmer and Liu 292). However, if a law was created that made getting vaccinations mandatory, these numbers would go down and fewer children would be dying. That’s always a