Many childhood diseases can now be prevented through the use of vaccines. Should parents be made by law to immunize their children against common diseases or should individuals have the right to choose not to immunize their children?

Many childhood diseases can now be prevented through the use of vaccines. Should parents be made by law to immunize their children against common diseases or should individuals have the right to choose not to immunize their children?

In contemporary times, with the advent of immunization, children can be provided safeguards against various dreadful ailments. This has motivated many to make people legally obligated to opt for child vaccination, whereas some feel it should be individual prerogative.  

To start with, offering freedom regarding the inoculation of their young ones, many will evade it; superstition or communal beliefs being the rationale behind it, eventually predisposing the former to innumerable enervating disorders: polio, whooping cough, measles, and so on. Along with this, the latter with low immunity will get sick often as they are not immunized, causing their parents to rush to the state for help as health is a state subject. Also, such casual conduct could result in infecting the other juveniles with communicable diseases; compromising the health of society. To corroborate, a recent case was analyzed wherein 30% youngsters of a village were infected with measles but due to lack of preventive measures and vaccination, others got infected too, jeopardizing the health of the whole village.  

Nevertheless, despite being unfounded, the skeptics vehemently opine that various vaccinations are irrelevant now as the illnesses they treated are in a history; however, pharma companies manufacture and sell to earn more money from the public, retailers and governments. Moreover, children survived disease outbreaks even before the advent of such programs, so there is no need to push them to use it. Also, it violates the concept of natural immunity against several bacterias and viruses, making them dependent on immunity boosters. Thus, people should have their own say for getting their wards inoculated.

Overall, despite having some unsubstantiated drawbacks, this program fetches numerous benefits; it will act as a blessing in disguise keeping debilitating and transferable diseases at bay, and creating a better and healthy society.