Thursday, December 1, 2011

Should Laser Eye Surgery Be Available to Minors?

Laser eye surgery is a procedure used to treat refractive errors and improve vision so glasses and contacts won’t be needed. The tool that is used is a laser (Duh hence the name of the procedure). So why is this not practiced on people less than Eighteen years old in America? Well there are several reasons why. Laser eye surgery is not foolproof in minors. It can cause you to have bad night vision with making you see glares and halos in the dark. It can also make dry irritated eyes even worse. Here comes the worst of all laser eye surgery can make your vision worse. On top of all that glasses and contacts can become useless in correcting a patient's vision after the surgery.

Even though it brings a lot of bad risks laser eye surgery has good risks to. Laser eye surgery seems to be very convenient. A session can be very short only lasting up to five or ten minutes. (That’s really quick I hope they make sure to check over their work.) The good thing is that the laser is accurate because it is guided by a computer that has an eye for detail. It is usually effective in correcting visions such as farsightedness, nearsightedness, and a stigmatism. If the procedure somehow fails he can get further operations done many years after.

There are many reasons on why it should be legal for minors to get the procedure done in America. If it is labeled as illegal here people might go to other countries to get the procedure done. Some Unknowledgeable people might try to do laser eye surgery at home. In fear of being labeled as a nerd some people might refuse glasses. Contacts cost too much because you have to buy replacements over and over again. Why do that when you can just pay a onetime fee of five thousand dollars? It seems too convenient why aren’t all teenagers getting this surgery done. I can tell you why because doctors are too afraid to practice it on teens. I think it is just not right. Why shouldn’t teens get a choice on correcting their vision or not. If not that parents should at least be able to support their child’s decision so they can get the surgery. This proves that in matters of health children get little say. It is not like the procedure can’t help in the long run. It is very beneficial if it works. I myself think that kids have the right to try it. I myself have bad vision and think it is unjust for me not to have the right to correcting my problem. Laser eye surgery could get more effective if they let my minors go through it. Doing this would help people with bad vision anywhere. So again I ask you should laser eye surgery be available to minors. What do you think? Is it too risky or not. I’ll let you decide.

3 comments:

  1. Are you saying that if they laser eye surgery goes wrong, you will become blind? Or that it might not fully work and you can't get glasses or contacts to fix it?

    "It can cause you to have bad night vision with making you see glares and halos in the dark."
    My dad got laser eye surgery and has bad vision at night now. Does that mean if he needs wears glasses it won't help or correct his vision?
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    I agree that contacts and glasses and eye doctor appointments are expensive, but I think the age is where it is because your eye sight keeps changing when you're in school. Once you're out of school and don't focus on the board/etc. too much, then your vision stabilizes and doesn't change much until you get old.

    I don't think it's risky, I just think it's a waste of money if my vision is going to keep on getting worse... Will it get worse if I get laser eye surgery and still go to school? (I have bad vision myself.)

    This was a very interesting post to read. Sorry for the long comment!

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  3. i was told that getting laser surgery before 23 would not be useful since the eye is still developing.

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