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If we think of rights as side constraints on what we can do, we must allow that there may be cases in which we must give up some good because we would have to violate a right in order to achieve it. We may still allow that there are some cases in which a right can be overridden, but these will probably be unusual cases such as catastrophes. Loren Lomasky puts the point this way:
Self-direction as an essential component of human good is one postulate of an ethic with an individualistic core. It is not the only postulate, however….
A doctrine of basic rights, then, need not and should not present individualism as the only value worth upholding. It is, however, committed to regarding individualism as of paramount importance such that other ends taken to be of value to particular individuals or to society may not be pursued in ways that violate rights. Because rights do constrain permissible action, a community that recognizes and respects basic rights is thereby signifying its willingness to sacrifice benefits that could otherwise be procured. Nor need these benefits be small;…reformers and revolutionaries who espy the possibility of a vastly improved human condition tend to regard claims of basic rights a burdensome or nonsensical or both. It is therefore a crucial task of the rights theorist to explain how it can be reasonable to place such a premium on individualism that it is allowed to stymie the procurement of goods that are attainable only through rights-violating means.
Reference: Loren Lomasky, Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community, p. 16.