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BMAT Essay Marking

isademel1999

Hey everyone, The BMAT is coming up soon and I am kind of worried about my productive skills for Section 3, since I am not a native speaker... Can anyone give this attempt a read and give me some feedback on what I can do better?

"Parents who withhold vaccinations from their children, betray their duty of care." Discuss.

This statement addresses an issue that has been in the centre of many heated debates for a long time: Vaccinations. It usually opposes those, who argue in favour of vaccination, including many health care professionals and those who consider withholding vaccination to be the best action. The above stimulus implies that every parent who doesn´t give consent to the vaccination of their children, should automatically be classified as careless.
This view can be justified by scientific evidence. Research and studies have proven that vaccinations help to protect the population from many diseases such as tubercolosis, yellow fever and tetanus. And not only that: the exposure to small amounts of a certain pathogen, also contribute to the strength of our body own immune defence system. Parents withholding this extra protection from their children could, therefore, be classified as a careless act.
Opponents of this view, however, argue that vaccinations, in fact, do more harm than good. This is because they can, in some cases, have serious side effects such as severe allergies and other kinds of immune responses. Furthermore, the act of vaccination can not be combined with many different religious beliefs, as it is thought as being unnatural, interfering with natural processes. Having that in mind, is disagreeing with vaccination really careless? This is where the idea of intention comes into play: If parents believe that they are actually acting in their child´s best interest by withholding vaccination from them, are they betraying their duty of care?

Due to the controversy of this topic, public attitude towards vaccination of children will always be entirely subjective. In the view of the above arguments, however, I personally think that the above statement itself is way too generalised. It not only fails to take the intention of the parents into account, but also ignores the idea of patient autonomy, a person´s right to decide about their own health care. Therefore, even if vaccinations are- in my opinion - a crucial part of modern medicine, I disagree with the stimulus.

Thanks so much in advance!