Cranford is a member of the board of directors of the Choice in Dying Society, which promotes doctor-assisted suicide and euthanasia. He was also a featured speaker at the 1992 national conference of the Hemlock Society. The group recently changed its name to End of Life Choices.
In 1997, Cranford wrote an opinion piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune titled: "When a feeding tube borders on barbaric." "Just a few decades ago cases of brain death, vegetative state, and locked-in syndrome were rare," he wrote. "These days, medicine's 'therapeutic triumphs' have made these neurologic conditions rather frequent. For all its power to restore life and health, we now realize, modern medicine also has great potential for prolonging a dehumanizing existence for the patient."
He explained that while landmark legal cases like those of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan demonstrated it was "sensible to stop treatment in patients lingering in permanent vegetative states," it was now time to look beyond those cases.
"The United States has thousands or tens of thousands of patients in vegetative states; nobody knows for sure exactly how many," he wrote. "But before long, this country will have several million patients with Alzheimer's dementia. The challenges and costs of maintaining vegetative state patients will pale in comparison to the problems presented by Alzheimer's disease." The answer, he suggested, was physician-assisted suicide.
In recent years, medical ethics and the law have been twisted in frightening ways. Food and water have been reclassified as "medical treatments" if they’re administered "artificially." Dr. Ronald Cranford has even testified in court that spoon-feeding may be classed as "artificial," presumably because helping people to eat is somehow unnatural. < /snip>
Dr. Ronald Cranford was a member of the board of the former Euthanasia Society of America, which eventually merged with Partnership for Caring. Partnership for Caring lists Mary Labyak as a current member of their Board of Directors; she is also the CEO of the hospice where Terri Schiavo lives. Both George Felos and Barbara Sheen Todd have served on the Board of Directors for that same hospice; Mr. Felos was in fact the Chairman of the Board until Terri Schiavo was moved there. Mrs. Todd serves as a Pinellas County commissioner. Judge George Greer served with her for eight years; it is he who has ordered Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube removed. He also appointed a supposedly "neutral" neurologist, Dr. Peter Bambakidis of Ohio, to break the tie between doctors who disagreed about Terri’s diagnosis. Dr. Bambakidis had never before testified in a case like Terri’s, but his brother and George Felos have both served as officers in the American Hellenic Education Progressive Association.< snip >
Dr. Cranford has been an instrumental force in redefining the determination of death. Death was once defined as the time when the heart permanently stopped beating. Through Dr. Cranford’s activism, it was changed to coincide with the cessation of brain waves. The motivation for this redefinition was so that human organs would survive the death of the patient and be available for transplant.
Hide granny in the fruit cellar, they are coming for Alzheimer's patients next.
They are already doing it, ask around. It just doesn't make the news.
You gotta be kidding me. Bleepin' media!
I saw this guy on Scarborough last night -he is one evil dude....
Actually Dr Cranford (aka Dr Death) was one of two "expert witness" doctors chosen by Michael Schiavo to present his position in the 2002 appeal where Terri's condition was supposedly reevaluated by a 5 doctor panel. The other Schiavo pick being Dr Melvin ("I don't need to see the patient to make a diagnosis") Greer.
Each spent 30-45 minutes total with Terri.
The judge's personal choice and a heavy influence on his decision to deny Terri therapy and life, was a Dr Peter Bambakidis from Cleveland...who had never testifed in such a proceeding.
It would MOST interesting and curious to determine how Judge Greer came to know of and select Dr Bambakidis, who was supposed to be a neutral guardian, not affliated with either Michael or Terri's family.
To date, the only known Bambakidis tie to Pinellas county Florida is that the good doctor's brother Gust was an officer in a national Greek fraternal group to which also belonged...............George Felos, Michael's attorney.