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Vaccination is perceived as an authoritarian or totalitarian violation of civil liberties
Reactance is a well-known psychological construct which describes an individual’s tendency to defend their autonomy when they perceive that others are trying to impose their will on them.
Individuals who have high reactance may respond to any health advice as an infringement on their ability to choose an action for themselves. High reactance has been consistently associated with vaccine hesitancy.
Reactance manifests in arguments proclaiming that the decision of whether or not to vaccinate must be completely free and autonomous. Reactance tends to be associated with a high sense of personal autonomy and empowerment, and with a view of civil liberties that includes the right to act contrary to social norms and political injunctions.
This theme claims that vaccination is a human rights and/or civil liberties issue, and vaccination programmes violate one’s right to decide what goes into one’s body.
The arguments often fight back against perceived authoritarian or totalitarian state overreach or abuse of power, in some extreme cases labelling it ‘slavery’ or ‘tyranny’.
Civil liberties are a very sensitive and relevant issue, and there is a wide range of political movements trying to restrict them. It is good for people to be vigilant and defend the freedoms and rights. There are basic principles underlying human rights and civil liberties, which form the basis of democratic societies. It is good to examine carefully where vaccination sits within the context of rights and liberties.
Dialogue between patients and healthcare professionals is most productive if it is guided by empathy, and an opportunity for the patient to affirm the reasons underlying their attitudes and to express understanding for that. That’s why it is important to understand the attitude roots behind people’s overt opinions. To affirm a person’s underlying attitude root does not mean we need to agree with the specifics of their argument. For example, we can acknowledge that:
Civil liberties are a very sensitive and relevant issue, and there is a wide range of political movements trying to restrict them. It is good for people to be vigilant and defend the freedoms and rights. There are basic principles underlying human rights and civil liberties, which form the basis of democratic societies. It is good to examine carefully where vaccination sits within the context of rights and liberties.
Vaccination campaigns are compatible with human rights recognised by most democratic societies, and on their own are no indicator of whether an authority is behaving in an authoritarian fashion. When people are asked to get vaccinated, a balance is struck between individual rights and the rights of others.
Our civil rights and liberties cannot be separated from the need to exercise them responsibly. For example, we cannot exercise our right to take the risk of consuming alcohol when driving because it would endanger others also using the road.
With vaccination, the same principle applies: each person has a right to take their own risks with a disease, but when societal welfare cannot cope with the burden of disease, we do not have unlimited rights to infringe on others’ rights to health by refusing to get vaccinated.
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