The following talking points may be useful to you when meeting with your Representative, when calling in to their office, or when writing a letter to the Member. They can also be useful in facilitating discussions with group members, or when talking to friends or family about the medical neutrality bill.
- Violations of medical neutrality include attacks on health care facilities, obstruction of medical personnel who are attempting to provide nondiscriminatory care, blocking of access to health care, punishing a person for providing care to the sick and injured, or arbitrary arrest or detention of medical personnel for their attempt to provide care.
- Independent investigations conducted by Physicians for Human Rights demonstrate that violations of medical neutrality are often widespread and systematic, and are not confined to one particular country or region. There needs to be strong U.S. response to this global problem.
- H.R. 2643, the Medical Neutrality Protection Act of 2011, would authorize several responses from the U.S., including the withholding of U.S. military assistance, visa bans for individual perpetrators, a push for a Special Rapporteur for medical neutrality at the Human Rights Council, and mandated inclusion of medical neutrality in the State Department country reports.
