Point 8: Improving the health of all people is the right thing to do.
Case Study: Is there a moral imperative?
If I were a parent in a poor, debt-riddled nation, cradling my dying child in my arms, my heart would be broken and I would cry out for a solution. My prayer is that the leaders of the world will heed these cries and will work together to solve this critical problem. As a follower of Jesus, however, I believe this is not just a political or economic issue, it's a moral and spiritual issue as well. —Rev. Billy Graham, statement on the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel debt in the world's poorest countries, 1999.
There is no bigger test for humanity than the crisis of global health. Solving it will require the full commitment of our hearts and minds. We need both. Without compassion, we won't do anything. Without science, we can't do anything. So far, we have not applied all we have of either. —Bill Gates, speech to the World Health Assembly, 2005
We live in a world of both endless possibility and immense injustice. The disparity between the very rich and very poor continues to grow, creating dangerous inequality. A world in which few prosper and many starve offends our commitment to fairness and insults our belief in justice for all. —Ruth Messinger, President and Executive director of American Jewish World Service, and Reverend John McCullough, Executive Director and CEO of Church World Service, writing in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, July 1, 2005.
This isn't for me a social action question. It's not a political question. It is impossible to be an evangelical Christian and ignore the vast teaching of the Bible about poor people. — Jim Wallis, editor of the evangelical magazine Sojourners and head of Call to Renewal, a faith-based anti-poverty group, in an interview with the PBS program Frontline, 2004
Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. —Nelson Mandela, speech in Trafalgar Square, 2005
The advance of development is a central commitment of American foreign policy. As a nation founded on the dignity and value of every life, America's heart breaks because of the suffering and senseless death we see in our world. We work for prosperity and opportunity because they're right. It's the right thing to do. —President George W. Bush, announcing the establishment of the Millennium Challenge Account, 2002
The problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger, and so on, are human created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding, and a development of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share. —Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 1989
This (evangelical) community is saying, "We're the most dominant country in the history of humanity. We must move humbly and wisely, not just for our own economic and strategic interests but for what is morally right." —-Sen. Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, 2004 (21)
We are the first generation that can look extreme and stupid poverty in the eye, look across the water to Africa and elsewhere and say this and mean it: "We have the cash, we have the drugs, we have the science — but do we have the will? Do we have the will to make poverty history? Some say we can't afford to. I say we can't afford not to." —Bono, speech to Labour Party Conference, 2005
Here, then, is the charter of Christian Aid: as an agency of the churches, its task is not simply to meet certain needs but to help shape a particular kind of world — one in which trust seems natural because people understand about acting for each other's interests, acting to secure the place of others in the same processes of giving and receiving. —Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Sermon on the 60th anniversary of the relief organization Christian Aid, 2005
A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day, is neither just nor stable. Including all of the world's poor in an expanding circle of development — and opportunity — is a moral imperative and one of the top priorities of U.S. international policy. —"The National Security Strategy of the United States of America," 2002
