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I walked into my children's daycare one day to hear a father of two girls in the program arguing with the owner about her ability to mandate that his children be vaccinated. His position was that the health of his children was his responsibility and therefore it was his right to decide whether or not to have them vaccinated. He was arguing that the government, in the form of the public school system, and the private daycare provider, were overstepping their bounds by mandating vaccinations prior to allowing the attendance of his children.

The conversation stopped me in my tracks not only because of the fervor with which he argued that he should not have to vaccinate his young children against the numerous childhood diseases that have been all but eradicated in th United States as a result of vaccinations, but also the sheer audacity of him to believe that he should have the right to send his children to school without those protections and risk exposing my children to fatal maladies.

Due to the widespread use of immunizations, most fatal childhood diseases that wreaked havoc on previous generations have been eliminated. Vaccines are the reason that children in the United States are no longer being paralyzed from contracting polio. They are also the reason that childhood meningitis has become newsworthy, as opposed to commonplace. We no longer have mothers burying child after child as a result of smallpox. But to believe that these illnesses could not return is naive at best, and foolish at worst. This truth became clear in the last few years with the appearance of polio clusters in areas of the United States where cultural and religious beliefs prohibit immunizations.

When discussing vaccines, however, we must acknowledge that there are risks - both known and unknown - that need to be considered. I understand this well as one of my daughters developed a mild case of shingles at 18 months after receiving the chicken pox vaccine, and my other daughter had a severe case of the hives in reaction to her tetanus shot. It is also essential that the medical community determine whether there is in fact a link between something contained in certain immunizations, and autism.

Despite these concerns, the benefit inured to society as a result of vaccinations cannot be ignored. So, as I drove away from daycare I could not help but think about how lucky we are that we can even have this debate. It is only because we live in a country where the death and horror associated with childhood illness is no longer prevalent, that ending the practice of immunizations seems possible.

Learn more about this author, Anna Casey.
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