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Results for “Jacobson v. Massachusetts”

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13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Jacobson v Massachusetts: it's not your great-great-grandfather's public health law.

Jacobson v Massachusetts, a 1905 US Supreme Court decision, raised questions about the power of state government to protect the public's health and the Constitution's protection of personal liberty. We examined conceptions about state power and personal liberty in Jacobson and later cases that expanded, superseded, or even ignored those ideas. Public health and constitutional law have evolved to better protect both health and human rights. States' sovereign power to make laws of all kinds has not changed in the past century. What has changed is the Court's recognition of the importance of individual liberty and how it limits that power. Preserving the public's health in the 21st century requires preserving respect for personal liberty.

Civil Rights↗
PubMed2005

Jacobson v Massachusetts at 100 years: police power and civil liberties in tension.

A century ago, the US Supreme Court in Jacobson v Massachusetts upheld the exercise of the police power to protect the public's health. Despite intervening scientific and legal advances, public health practitioners still struggle with Jacobson's basic tension between individual liberty and the common good. In affirming Massachusetts' compulsory vaccination law, the Court established a floor of constitutional protections that consists of 4 standards: necessity, reasonable means, proportionality, and harm avoidance. Under Jacobson, the courts are to support public health matters insofar as these standards are respected. If the Court today were to decide Jacobson once again, the analysis would likely differ--to account for developments in constitutional law--but the outcome would certainly reaffirm the basic power of government to safeguard the public's health.

Civil Rights↗
PubMed2005

Manifold restraints: liberty, public health, and the legacy of Jacobson v Massachusetts.

February 2005 marks the centenary of one of the most important pieces of public health jurisprudence, the US Supreme Court case of Jacobson v Massachusetts, which upheld the authority of states to pass compulsory vaccination laws. The Court's decision articulated the view that the freedom of the individual must sometimes be subordinated to the common welfare. We examined the relationship between the individual and society in 20th-century public health practice and law and the ways that compulsory measures have been used to constrain personal liberty for the sake of protecting the public health.

Civil Rights↗
PubMed2006

Balancing individual rights versus collective good in public health enforcement.

This paper explores the balance between common good and individual liberty in the context of public health regulation. The issues are explored in reference to two areas of regulation, isolation and quarantine in the case of SARS, and the rights of parents to refuse mandatory childhood immunizations. In the case of SARS, the analysis explores the age old practice of isolation and quarantine, an important preventive measure with clear civil liberty implications. In reference to childhood immunization the paper considers the American controversy involving the refusal of parents to have their children vaccinated, fearing that mercury in vaccines will lead to autism. The analysis explores the US Supreme Court case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts which 100 years ago established a four part test for evaluating claims of individuals that government public health authorities were infringing on their liberty interests. The paper endorses the four elements of necessity, reasonableness, proportionality, and harm avoidance identified in Jacobson, but calls for a more rigorous scientific evaluation to accompany this traditional test.

Humans↗