MANDATORY VACCINATIONS: A PUBLIC HEALTH NECESSITY OR PERSONAL LIBERTY INFRINGEMENT? (Essay Sample)

MANDATORY VACCINATIONS: A PUBLIC HEALTH NECESSITY OR PERSONAL LIBERTY INFRINGEMENT? Student’s Name Course Professor’s Name University City (State) Date Mandatory Vaccinations: A Public Health Necessity or Personal Liberty Infringement? Introduction Mandatory vaccination is a highly debatable issue among individuals, including healthcare professionals. Disease outbreaks, such as the Covid-19 virus, cause deaths and huge economic losses. While coercing people to be vaccinated is a controversial topic, it helps to address these issues. Even though a vaccine mandate violates individual rights, it becomes a public health necessity if a disease poses grave danger to the society, the process helps protect other people, and the pandemic compromises the herd immunity of the population. Mitigating a Grave Risk If the pandemic poses a grave danger to the community, then coercing people to be vaccinated is necessary to protect public health. In cases when a disease outbreak poses a great risk to public health, the vaccine causes no harm and is effective, and proportionality in the advantages and disadvantages is ensured, then a vaccine mandate is justifiable (Savulescu 2020 p. 78). The policy can be adopted if the process presents more benefits and if further restrictions on personal liberty lead to greater gains in protecting the health of the population. While some people oppose mandatory vaccination on the basis of their personal liberty, this can be justifiably infringed if the risk on one or a few individuals is insignificant or small, but the process helps prevent harm to the larger population (Savulescu 2020, p. 82). To attain any benefits, the alternatives that present lower restrictions on individual rights are considered. Therefore, mandatory vaccination can be ethical if it helps stop potentially severe consequences of a disease. Reducing Harm to Other Individuals The need to protect other people makes mandatory vaccination a necessity, even if it means restricting personal liberty. People can be justifiably forced to be vaccinated so as to mitigate the risk of causing harm to others (King, Ferraz & Jones 2021, pp. 220-221). In this case, coercion helps to reduce the dangers a disease poses to the entire population. Agreeably, mandatory vaccination leads to violation of the fundamental rights of individuals (King et al., 2021, p. 221). However, if governments follow a careful design based on clear laws developed after proper consultations, there will be little and justifiable infringement of personal liberty. Thus, mandatory vaccination can be ethical if done appropriately to protect the public from possible harm. Herd Immunity Mandatory vaccination should be allowed if the herd immunity of the community has been compromised. If herd immunity, which refers to a situation when a large percentage of the population is immune to a disease, is not attained, then mandatory vaccination becomes a necessity since the public face a grave danger (Dunne & Spain 2022, p. 224). This measure helps to protect all people, including those who cannot be vaccinated due to various reasons, such as medical conditions. However, some people have no trust in the government and pharmaceutical companies and are also concerned about the safety of vaccines (Dunne & Spain 2022, p. 22...