History Headscratchers / Gattaca

*** Much less likely but on the other hand more dystopian: the world of Gattaca is so obsessed with perfection and conformity that even astronauts on a mission have to wear business suites, possibly finding the very idea unthinkable that something could wrong on a mission where everyone involved is genetically optimized .

*** I wouldn't call your point, a 'problem', at least not from the POV of valid society. The science shown in the film is sufficiently advanced that they are very confident that sickness and illness will not be a problem for the enhanced valid population. Thus, the only real 'need', or market for corrective surgery would be-guess who? Yes, the IN-valids. The movie is quite clear that Vincents society is highly discriminatory. Its no stretch to imagine the valids would feel providing resources and specialists to extend and correct defects in invalids, would be pointless. Although the movie does not directly state it, its hard not to get the impression the valids are just waiting for the in-valids to all die off, naturally of course. The sooner the better.

** Skin cells and white blood cells can easily be extracted from urine with current technology. With their advanced genetic screening tech, they could easily have better equipment.

** They're actually drug tests, but the movie's AppliedPhlebotinum is [[YouFailBiologyForever ubiquitous instant genetic screening]] - the computers analyze genetics at the same time just as a matter of fact.

** It looked like an extremely large shelf, and the required amount for day to day is low. The blood pack looks to be about 10ml, easily covered by the rows of head-sized jars filled with blood. The skin... a human generates a surprising amount of waste skin and hair, although admittedly not ''that'' much, but the comb only needs a few of each, which again would cover him for a long, long time.

* The Coda's Aesop. Not only is it uncomfortably similar to the anti-abortion sentiment "but what if the fetus grows up to cure cancer!", there is a pretty big loophole in the moral. Yes, it's possible that many great historical figures would've never been born, but guess what, just as many terrible people wouldn't have been born either! For every Abraham Lincoln there's a Hitler (who had Parkinson's and also would've been spared existence had the Human Genome Project been started earlier- which is arguably a worthwhile trade-off). So yeah, in conclusion, genetic engineering is neutral; you lose some cool people like Vincent van Gogh, but humanity also gets to be spared some horrific mass-murderers.

* Why does Jerome live in a house with stairs if he's in a wheelchair? The house was most likely provided by Tony Shalhoub's black marketeer - there weren't any single-floor apartments available?
** Probably because he was living in that house since before his paralysis and simply didn't move out. Tony Shalhoub's character does imply that nobody knows what happened to Jerome Morrow - which is, as told to us, because Jerome doesn't want his condition known. This means he didn't leave the house or rent/buy another one, playing the role of the shut-in Valid who is mad at the world for ever being second best at swimming.
** Also, RuleOfSymbolism. The stairs resemble a strand of DNA. [[spoiler:That means when Eugene was climbing up the stairs, it was a VisualPun]].