The United States may be behind other advanced nations when it comes to treating healthcare as a human right, but American law protects free speech as a right more often and more intensely than anywhere in the world. Floyd Abrams, a senior partner in the Cahill Gordon & Reindel law firm, who has litigated cases ranging from the Pentagon Papers case to Citizens United and has taught as a visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School and is the author of The Soul of the First Amendment (Yale University Press, 2017), examines why the first amendment is so vital to the nation's identity.