If Beer and Wrestling Are “Essential,” So Is Easter: COVID-19, Freedom of Religion or Belief, and Public Health in Australia and the United States—Why Rights Matter

Babie, Paul; Russo, Charles J.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3880885

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2019 ; House of Representatives 2021 ; Babones 2020b ; Andrews 2021 ; Victorian Government Board of Inquiry into the COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Program 2020 ; Bowen 2020 ; Morrison 2020 ; Hunt and Kelly 2020 ; House of Representatives 2008b ; Department of Health and Ageing 2006 ; Hunt and Murphy 2020 ; Kelly 2021 ; Legislative Assembly of Western Australia 2020a ; Legislative Assembly of Western Australia 2020b ); freedom and liberty, especially freedom of movement (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights 2020b ; Jamrozik and Heriot 2020 ; Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights 2020a ; Pelkas 2010 ; Boucher et al 2021 ; Hicks 2021 ; Lelliott, Schloenhardt, and Ioannou 2021 ; Bennett 2021 ); and economic rights (Bennett 2009 ; Boyd, Baker, and Wilson 2020 ; Bashford and Howard 2004 ; Ly, Selgelid, and Kerridge 2007 ; Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2019 ; House of Representatives 2008a ; MacIntyre 2020a ; Bennett 2021 ). Some sources noted that Australia has no federal bill of rights, which means that there are no guaranteed procedural (or substantive) protections from incursions from the state (Bennett 2009 ; Guy and Hocking 2006 ; Hicks 2021 ; Babie and Russo 2020 ). As the powers exercisable at the federal level are largely discretionary and wide-ranging in their scope, sources identified a danger that incursions against individual rights will go largely unchallenged (Guy and Hocking 2006 ; Chen 2018 ; Pelkas 2010 ; Carter 2020 ; Dehm, Loughnan, and Steele 2021; Dzankic and Piccoli 2020 ; Schwarz 2020 ; Gray 2021 ; Murphy and Arban 2021 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Any decision in response to a public health emergency will therefore require the balancing of rights against each other, with an eye towards an equitable balancing of competing considerations. Quarantine is no different and this explains why conversations of rights and freedoms figure highly in the surveyed literature, especially those that are interested in motivating and justifying these measures (Department of Health 2020 ; Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights 2020b ; Guy and Hocking 2006 ; Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2019 ; Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights 2020a ; House of Representatives 2021 ; Pelkas 2010 ; Carter 2020 ; Dehm, Loughnan, and Steele 2021 ; Dzankic and Piccoli 2020 ; Schwarz 2020 ; Babie and Russo 2020 ; Murphy and Arban 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ethics and Health Security in the Australian COVID-19 Context: A Critical Interpretive Literature Review

Fehross,

Pahlman,

Silva

2023

Bioethical Inquiry

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Background The concept of “health security” is often used to motivate public health responses, yet the ethical values that underpin this concept remain largely unexamined. The recent Australian responses to COVID-19 serve as an important case study by which we can analyse the pre-existing literature to see what ethical values shaped, and continue to shape, Australia’s response. Methods We conducted a critical interpretive literature review of academic and grey literatures within key databases, resulting in 2,220 sources. After screening for duplicates and relevance, we analysed ninety-six sources. Results First, risk and uncertainty are a leading focus, with a heavy concentration on risks to life and health. Second, free movement, safety, and security were recurringly emphasized, albeit narrowly focused upon the safety of the population. Third, legitimacy was a recurring theme, and it is here that discussions of “health security” figured highly. Conclusion Discussions of harm from government and associated official bodies fail to adequately distinguish between various senses of harm. Moreover, while the literature often discusses the balancing of rights, the steps involved in the weighing of these rights is rarely adequately explained and defended. We suggest that decision-makers should endeavour to clearly identify and defend the values undergirding their decisions in the public sphere.

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