Critique of the Public health law/policy Essay.
Category: Medicine and Health
Please this is to critique the two posts not to discuss, describe or report,
Comment on and critique on this two posts:
First post: The perspective of Gostin contains two points of view. First, individual rights must be protected under the law. Second, the state should have the power to promote and defend the public’s health. These two aspects often have a conflict and prevent enacting public health law.
Individual rights and liberties must be considered very carefully when the law is established. It is because fundamental rights are protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Australian Human Rights Commission, n.d.).
On the other hand, on some occasions, the state’s power may be better to enforce public health law to protect the massive population from an unhealthy environment. For example, the Victorian government published Tobacco Amendment Act 2016. The purpose of this Act is to prohibit smoking in outdoor dining areas (Victorian Legislation, 2016). This restriction can prevent a vast number of people from passive smoking, which is harmful. Australian Government Department of Health (2019) reports 1 in 8 Australians who died from a smoking-related disease was a non-smoker, and second-hand smoke caused the deaths.
To sum up, individual rights are always important and should be prioritized. In my opinion, however, the state’s prerogative can bring about health benefits to the population over individuals in a certain situation.
Second post: The key objective of public health law is to pursue the highest possible level of both physical health and mental health of the population, considering the morals of social justice (Gostin, 2007) . Public health law is rooted in the legal basis of the people’s and the population’s right to health, safety and life, and as such, the population has a right to self-defence to protect themselves from such harm (Koyuncu & Kirch, 2010). In order to safeguard and promote the population’s health and safety, public health systems must be established by the state (Koyuncu & Kirch, 2010). Human freedoms and rights can be restricted legitimately by public health powers to achieve collective good and positive health outcomes, however, must be maintained consistently with both constitutional and statutory constraints of the state. Decision making in public health law involves complicated trade-offs to minimise coercions between the state and the people whilst considering individual rights to autonomy, privacy, liberty and property. An on-going problem for public health law is achieving an equilibrium between the powers and the duties of the state to maintain and advance the public’s health and the rights that are constitutionally protected (Gostin, 2000).
In both posts, draw on academic sources to support your ideas and opinions and use examples to illustrate your points.
Please also:
- Write in a clear & succinct academic style, (ie. no abbreviations, emojis, incomplete sentences, or poor grammar).
- Where you draw on other authors’ ideas, include in-text citations and a reference list (in accordance with APA 7)
- Proof read your work carefully.
- Do not exceed 200 words per post (additional words will not be read). In-text citations and the reference list are not counted in the word limit.
- In your work, refer to the first post as Post A and second post as Post B, All in one paper, 200 words total, excluding in text citation and reference list, Please use Australian context and evidence in your work. APA 7 style.
- Please this is to critique the two posts not to discuss, describe or report,
Critique of the Public health law/policy
Name of Student
Institutional Affiliation
Lecturer’s Name
Date of Submission
Critique of the Public health law/policy
Post A
The government’s act of protecting individual rights and defending public health is very crucial and necessary. As much as people have individual rights to even smoke, the government has always to prioritize the public’s health, and therefore the state’s power comes in handy when enforcing the public health law to safeguard the general public population from the unhealthy environment as a result of public smoking (Tobacco Act, 2016). The Victorian government was right to develop such restrictions in the Victorian Legislation 2016 to protect the general public’s health. To strike a balance between protecting the public’s health and promoting individual rights, the government should establish public smoking zones as this will prevent passive smoking amongst non-smokers.
Post B
There is a need to restrict the public health powers legitimately to realize positive health and collective good outcomes, just as Koyuncu & Kirch (2010) highlight; however, the state has to maintain consistency with both the statutory and constitutional constraints as much as realizing an equilibrium between the duties and powers of the state to advance and maintain the public’s health may be cumbersome constitutionally. However, the state protecting the physical and mental health of the public is a priority over individual rights.
References
Koyuncu, A., & Kirch, W. (2010). Public health law and the legal basis of public health. Journal of Public Health, 18(5), 429-436.
TOBACCO AMENDMENT ACT 2016 (NO. 55 OF 2016). (2016). Retrieved 13 August 2021, from http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/num_act/taa201655o2016199/