Jacobson v Massachusetts: It’s Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Public Health Law
Top Cited Papers
- 1 April 2005
- journal article
- Published by American Public Health Association in American Journal of Public Health
- Vol. 95 (4) , 581-590
- https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2004.055160
Abstract
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 We examined conceptions about state power and personal liberty in Jacobson and later cases that expanded, superseded, or even ignored those ideas.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.Keywords
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Public Health Measures to Control the Spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome during the Outbreak in TorontoNew England Journal of Medicine, 2004
- The Federal Smallpox Vaccination Program: Where Do We Go From Here?Health Affairs, 2003
- Enemy AliensStanford Law Review, 2002
- Bioterrorism, Public Health, and Civil LibertiesNew England Journal of Medicine, 2002
- Large-Scale Quarantine Following Biological Terrorism in the United StatesPublished by American Medical Association (AMA) ,2001
- The Last Smallpox Epidemic in Boston and the Vaccination Controversy, 1901–1903New England Journal of Medicine, 2001
- Physician assisted suicide and the Supreme Court: putting the constitutional claim to rest.American Journal of Public Health, 1997
- Symbolic Statutes and Real Laws: The Pathologies of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Prison Litigation Reform ActDuke Law Journal, 1997
- The U-shaped Curve of ConcernAmerican Review of Respiratory Disease, 1991
- Liberty of ContractThe Yale Law Journal, 1909