LAUSR

How does one resolve the inherent tension between the public (common) good and individual rights (personal privacy)? Americans feel strongly about individual rights. According to Callahan (2012) both the political left and right are concerned with protecting individual rights, although different such rights. The left strongly defends personal freedom in the social and civil spheres—for instance, when it comes to sexuality or due process—while the right is intent on protecting freedom in the economic sphere, and on gun ownership (Callahan, 2012). Neither the left nor right likes to acknowledge the downsides of the individual rights that their side cares about. For example, on the left, the cost to society of diseases spread through promiscuity or irresponsible behavior, and on the right, the huge societal carnage caused by gun rights. Using opposition to vaccination as an example, Gerson (2015) attributes the resistance on the left with an obsession with the natural and the organic. Vaccines are placed in the same mental category as GMOs, DDT, and gluten. He says that opposition to vaccination on the right often reflects an obsession with liberty; in this case, freedom from intrusive government mandates (Gerson, 2015). Some seem to believe that the mere assertion of a right is sufficient to end a public argument. But no right is absolute. In all these matters, there must be a balance between individual rights and the common good (Etzioni, 1997; Gerson, 2015). How do we achieve that balance? Etzioni provides guidelines to help us in making trade-offs in the name of the common good. These include the following: tolerate new limitations on individual rights only when there is a compelling need; minimize the entailed intrusion; double check that there is no other way of serving the same purpose; and, minimize the side effects (Etzioni, 1997). The issue of the public good vs. individual rights comes up frequently where public health is concerned, an area with which nurses are familiar. I was reminded of this again recently reading an article in Nursing Outlook about using nursing history to inform decision making about vaccines and infectious diseases (Lusk, Keeling, & Lewenson, 2016). Relating the recent