San Francisco Gray Panthers healthcare resolution for 2008 National Convention

Implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

We wish to honor Eleanor Roosevelt, first U.S. delegate to the United Nations, for her achievement in the art of diplomacy. As Chair of the commission on Human Rights she worked with persistence and dedication with a committee of academics and philosophers from diverse cultures to craft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its unanimous acceptance, but for nine abstentions, by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948, was due to her belief in the shared humanity of all people. It is as relevant to the world today as it was at the start of the Cold War in 1948.

WHEREAS many State Constitutions provide the people with inalienable rights, most do not provide for rights delineated in Article 25 of the UDHR: “the rights to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being … including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”

RESOLVED, that the Gray Panthers urge all networks to work to amend their State Constitutions by adding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.