The Troub rocks!

Kudos to the Troub staff on the new look! The color photos are great and the writing is, as always, professional and fun. Good stuff.

The UN, Hurricane Katrina and the Rights of the Disabled

Andrea Vrchota, a sophomore at Franciscan University, addressed the United Nations Conference on the Rights of Disabled Persons in January. Asked to speak when the scheduled speaker was cancelled, Andrea had fifteen minutes to prepare her remarks on the rights of the disabled to be guaranteed food and water. She said:

“Quality of life cannot be defined by a person’s disability or the medical profession’s opinions,” she said. “My own doctors stated that I would not live past the first week of my birth. Therefore, no one should be denied food and water because their life is deemed to be less valuable to others.”

The treaty was approved the next day with the statement in support of food and water as a basic human right included. 

This respect for basic human rights stands in stark contrast to this report last week from NPR: New Orleans Hospital Staff Discussed Mercy Killings. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, reports surfaced that some hospitalized patients were given fatal overdoses. New documents have come to light and the Louisiana attorney general is investigating. The disability rights organization Not Dead Yet disputes the term “mercy killing”, pointing out that:

In other words, the only way the staff could evacuate was if they could report there were no more living patients to take care of. This was not about compassion or mercy. It was about throwing someone else over the side of the lifeboat in order to save themselves.

As these two stories show, there’s still a long way to go and a lot more work to be done.

For more on the story of the Franciscan students delegation to the UN, see Franciscan University Students Make Impact at United Nations. The full text of Andrea’s remarks can be found here: NGO Comments on the Draft Text.

Thanks to Happy Catholic for the alert on the Katrina story.

Kudos

To Dr. Monica Anderson, Chair of the English, Music and Fine Arts Department. The National Communication Association’s Theater Division honored Dr. Anderson with its Excellence in Teaching and Service Award. The NCA is the oldest organization promoting scholarly work in the communications discipline. Dr. Anderson has taught at Franciscan for the past 14 years and was instrumental in the development of the new drama major.