Leslie Cannold has had enough of being even-handed and presenting Both Sides Now. She wants to cut to the chase: what’s the right way to go? In her new column, Dr Cannold brings her ethical training to everyday dilemmas. Send your questions to letters@crikey.com.au with “Dear Leslie” in the subject line. She might even reply…

Dear Leslie,

I work as a journalist for a large multinational media company (no prizes for guessing which one). I’m well paid and enjoy my work and the minor celebrity it provides. The only problem is the increasingly grotesque political and social views of my employer, many of which are used as clickbait to attract right-wing audiences. My heart says I should find another job, but my head and mortgage tell me to ignore my conscience and stay put. Any advice?

Confused Hack

Dear Confused Hack,

Hmmm, that’s hard. But you know I’m not the kind of girl who who’s going to bless a decision to push one’s moral qualms aside to look after number one. Yet, you wrote to me anyway. So, here’s my tough-love answer.

To start, I’m not sure this is an ethical dilemma — rather a garden-variety conflict between self-interest and doing the right thing. You know what the right thing is to do here, Hack. If there’s a way for you to make a living without participating in an enterprise you find morally corrupt, you should do that. Like today.

But what sense does that make, you may protest. Given someone else will immediately fill my seat who, if anything, is likely to be worse.

Sure, that could happen. But that doesn’t get you off the hook. Your first obligation is to keep your own hands clean, and your own moral house in order. Why? Because morality is what makes us human and sometimes in life that’s all we can do — but we can certainly do that.

But what if you can’t get another job?

OK, that’s different. No one expects you to starve or, if you have a family, to put all of you out on the street.

But I want to be clear that doesn’t get you off the hook. In fact, remaining in a morally compromised position is the harder road to take. Why? Because unless you want to be eaten away by guilt and be a crappy role model for your kids, you’re going to have to start cleaning your conscience another way. By working from the inside to achieve change.

Whether it’s writing an anonymous letter to Crikey, establishing an anonymous grievance mechanism, advocating for an external board of stakeholders, or organising external speakers to discuss bullying and social license, your new role at work — if you stay — is to do what you can to disrupt, ameliorate, and preferably up-end the worst excesses of your workplace.

I can’t wait to see the results! Good luck!

Dear Leslie,

The mother of my son’s best friend is refusing to get vaccinated. She says she won’t let her son be jabbed when they start offering it at school. She says it’s her right to make decisions about their health and that her choices should be respected. This sounds right when she says it but later on it feels like something is missing.

Confused in Caroline Springs

Hi, Confused,

Thanks for writing in. You are right. Something is missing. A few things, in fact.

There’s a lot of confusion in the community right now between our right to do something, and our right to do it without consequences. So, let’s break it down.

Rights are not stand-alone, unilateral demands. Paired to every right is a responsibility that someone else has to deliver. For example, I can only enjoy my right to life if everyone I meet accepts their responsibility not to kill me. My children can only realise their right to a free education if our governments uphold their duties to build and fund public schools.

All choices have consequences. In this case, your friend’s choice not to vaccinate her or her child increases the risk to both of them of catching and suffering both the short and long-term impacts of COVID-19. If that was the end of it, respecting her choice would be easy, because the consequences are confined to her.

But viruses don’t work that way. This means her choice has a serious impact on you, your child, and your school community, too.

As the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia explains, while COVID-19 vaccines are good, they are not 100% effective at preventing hospitalisation and death. So, while the greatest risk unvaccinated adults and children pose is to themselves, the existence of breakthrough infections means they pose a risk to vaccinated people, too.

Also, the more people who are unvaccinated in a school or the wider community, the greater the chance that the virus will spread, and potentially mutate further. This means more outbreaks, more people getting sick and dying, and more lockdowns to stop the spread.

The upshot? Your friend absolutely has the right to refuse vaccination for herself and for her minor child. But with this right comes the obligation to accept the consequences of that choice. Not just the natural ones resulting from the laws of viral replication, but any imposed by you and the school community to keep yourself safe.

Because — to state the obvious — you have rights related to your health and personal freedoms, too.

Send your dilemmas to letters@crikey.com.au with “Dear Leslie” in the subject line and you could get a reply from Dr Cannold in her new column. We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity.