[lbo-talk] Schiavo: case closed, sez WashPost

[Marta Russell]

>Washington Post - March 22, 2005
>
>Medical, Ethical Questions Largely Decided, Experts Say
>By Shankar Vedantam and Rick Weiss
>
><..>
>Ronald Cranford, like other doctors who have examined Schiavo, found 
>that she cannot respond to commands and lacks visual tracking, 
>essential signs of consciousness. Cranford, a neurologist and 
>medical ethicist at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, 
>has testified on behalf of Schiavo's husband.
>
>"Tomorrow I will do a transplant surgery if [Frist] starts doing 
>neurology," he said. "I have as much competence in transplant 
>surgery as he is competent to do a neurological diagnosis on a 
>videotape. He has no clue."

<..>

This is what I found on Cranford.  He is well  known to the 
disability activists.
marta


>Meet Ronald Cranford, Doctor of Death
>
>Ronald Cranford, the medical expert in the Terri Schiavo case who 
>delivered the diagnosis of PVS, is certainly not a neutral expert. 
>He apparently has been stumping the country arguing for withdrawal 
>of feeding tubes left and right.
>
>Here is an article in which he argues that feeding tubes should be 
>removed - not only from PVS patients, but from Alzheimers patients 
>as well.
>
>It's astonishing that someone sworn to heal takes such an aggressive 
>stance towards assisting death - most of it is his personal opinion 
>that the lives of the disabled are not worth living. The article 
>makes clear that Cranford is truly a doctor of death - a strong 
>advocate of physician assisted suicide.
>
>He rails against the "right to lifers" interfering with his desire 
>to hasten the deaths of patients. But those troublesome "Right to 
>Lifers" now includes the Pope - who has issued a directive that 
>supplying food and water are not "artificial means".
>
>Cranford may have a point - when older people are truly at the end 
>of life and are only being kept alive by artificial means. But he 
>strongly considers a feeding tube to be "artificial means". And it 
>seems he wants to spread his doctrine to all persons suffering 
>disability - not just those near the end of life. If you are 
>impaired, he would rather be rid of you.
>
>People at the end of life are one thing. But Schiavo is perfectly 
>healthy, and just requires food and water. And how about the 
>Wendland case? There, a wife wanted to pull the feeding tubes on her 
>husband. He was not in PVS; he was able to interact with his 
>environment. He could play with a ball, watched sports on TV, he 
>painted, he responded to commands, he had various moods - but 
>Cranford thought he should be killed.
>
>There appears to be an entire underground industry devoted to 
>killing the crippled on the theory that they are being kind to them 
>by killing them.
>
>http://www.penraker.com/archives/001345.html

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