Speech Delivery by Ambassador J. Kenneth Blackwell

Mexico City

September 25, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

It is a privilege to be here and to discuss such important and timely topics.  As some of you may know, I used to represent the United States as the Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.  And while Geneva may sound like a plush job, I often left the halls of the Palais des Nations with an overwhelming sense of sadness.  Mary Ann Glendon is going to talk later this weekend about the abuse of "rights" talk, and that is precisely what I witnessed on a day to day basis.  Countries using a human rights mechanism to advance malicious and deceitful aims.  I had hoped after my tenure that the reforms that went into place in Geneva might rectify the inefficiencies and abuse, but I am afraid that political expediency still trumps human dignity at the UN.  One such issue that has taken the world by storm is the "defamation of religions" issue.   

Washington, DC - Today some of the largest multiracial, multiethnic, and multigenerational faith-based and policy organizations in the country, representing more than 30 million people, gathered in the Nation's capital to discuss healthcare reform and to mobilize their constituents regarding this national debate.

We believe social justice includes healthcare reform that lowers the cost, increases quality, and expands choice at the greatest convenience, without moving private health decisions from the doctor's office to Washington bureaucrats. Individual liberties trump government-imposed obligations. We believe that individuals, communities, and doctors in the free market make better health decisions than government mandates. We believe in incentives, not coercion.

A National Health Service Healthcare Commission report found that up to 1,200 people may have died needlessly at a Mid-Staffordshire hospital because of pressure for the Trust, which administers the hospital, to meet government-mandated targets.

Here are a few examples uncovered by the report as cited in the London Telegraph:

Headline: NHS targets may have lead to 1,200 deaths in Mid-Staffordshire

• overstretched and poorly trained nurses who turned off equipment because they did not know how to work it" 
• "newly qualified doctors left to care for patients recovering from surgery at night" 
• "patients left for hours in soiled bedclothes" 
• "reception staff expected to judge the seriousness of the conditions of patients arriving at A&E (ER)" 

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving.

Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.

July 31, 2009 
The House of Representatives remains in pitched battle over health care reform. Three different House committees have been working on a draft. In its current form the bill is extremely disturbing. This analysis points out some of the most distressing aspects of the bill, but certainly not all of them. The information is arranged under three headings: Sanctity of Human Life, Increased Costs and Taxes, and Increased Bureaucracy and Intrusiveness. Any one of these three areas is enough to garner opposition. When combined, they lead to the unavoidable conclusion that H.R. 3200 is extremely dangerous legislation to the health and wellbeing of most Americans.