Day Six of the Current Hearing to Save Terri Schiavo's Life
Today was the last day of testimony. The expert was Dr. Cranford, a physician hired by Terri's husband in his fight to have her feeding tube removed. The physician is renowned for his involvement in right-to-kill-the-disabled cases like Terri's.
And today he made me involuntarily gasp.
I had made a pact with myself to show as little emotion as possible during the hearing to stay in the judge's good graces and to keep from affecting the proceedings. I did stray from that resolve briefly on the first day when I saw the videotape of Terri's Mom greeting her. I cried silently then in spite of myself.
And the sad arrogance of the doctors who want Terri to die have almost made me and all the other disabled group representatives present (like TASH) quietly laugh.
But today I gasped out loud in spite of myself.
It didn't happen when Dr. Cranford called the family's doctors all frauds. It didn't happen when he proudly admitted calling himself "Dr. Humane Death." I didn't even cry out when he agreed to having said, "I use killing in a morally neutral sense."
It was close when he verbally threatened the family attorney with retorts like, "You can't talk about something I'm not talking about!" But, she could handle herself. It got a little closer when Dr. Cranford said he believed it was okay to lie to patients about their true conditions.
I did have to hold the picture of my son born after my own coma and think only of that sweet young man when Cranford said he stands by his belief that the unconscious are not people with constitutional rights.
My sense of outrage almost bubbled to the surface in spite of myself when Cranford reaffirmed his belief that there is no moral or legal distinction between food, water and medicine when children with brain-damage are involved.
But, the disbelief that could not be denied started at my toes when he declined to see current records and films on Terri because he already knew the results...those results being that she should die. Even the husband's attorney had to insist that he see all the available videotape of Terri. The doctor was content to testify about the tapes without doing so.
When Cranford admitted to not keeping up with rehabilitation journals while he continued to make life changing rehabilitation decisions for people like Terri, I began to regret that I had eaten lunch.
I could hardly believe it when he admitted that the videotape of his exam was so bad that it did not prove what he claimed it did. That part of his testimony included noting that he did not have standard neurological implements to test Terri because of 9/11 security concerns while traveling.
He couldn't borrow, buy or ship to himself what he needed? But after watching him test her with what looked like his rental car keys, he announced that the lack of standard tools and a videotape that did not back up his conclusions did not change that conclusion in any way...Terri ought to die.
This is how bad the video showed his exam was of Terri: First he declared that Terri is deaf. Then he spent the rest of the exam giving her a series of very fast verbal commands. When she did not respond, he did not attribute that to the deafness he just mentioned.
I have had more neurological exams than I can remember over the years because of my own disability. However, I have never seen or experienced one as physically brutal as the one Terri received at Dr. Cranford's hands.
He clumsily poked, prodded, thumped, pushed, pulled, shouted, moved her, shoved her and pinched her very, very hard. THEN he testified that she mysteriously seem to pull away when he approached her for more. Duh!
At one point he thunked her hard between the eyebrows and she moaned. Cranford then told the court that was not a pain response!
At the end of this Inquisition-style exam, he told Terri that it was finished. She visibly relaxed and sighed. The doctor said that was in no way connected to what he had just done!
But here is where I finally did the gasping mentioned earlier: The family attorney showed Cranford a large picture of Terri and her mother joyously greeting each other as only two loving family members can do. The doctor said there was no way Terri could be recognizing the woman in that picture who had given birth to her.
He declared Terri's response to Mom as only an "involuntary subcortical response." Oh, but then he got much worse. The doctor said, in referring to the picture, "That's just cheap sensationalism and I've seen it done over and over...."
And that is where I could hold back no longer. That is where the family attorney said, "I am DONE with this witness." So was every disabled group present at that point.
Beware...he went and left us with this earlier comment to the family lawyer still ringing in our ears, "...But I'm not finished yet...."
We better not be either in the face of Dr. Cranford's continuing threat to people with disabilities.
Rus Cooper-Dowda
Ooooohhhhh my gosh, DJ!!
I can't believe what I just read. Dr Cranford wears his name of Dr Death well. I think I'll be sick too.
This was one of the people who condemned Terri to death. What has happened to our country? How can this man run around the country and be part of deciding if people Live or Die.
May God Have Mercy on a Land that Allows Such a Hedious Person to Judge the Worth of a Precious Person like Terri.
Dr. Ronald Cransford was on the board of the former Euthanasia Society Of America...which has merged with Partnership for Caring...and Mary Labyak in 2004 was listed as a member of their board of directors. Mary Labyak is the CEO of the hospice where Terri resides.
Dr. Ronald Cransford has been a activist for the euthanasia for years and back as far as 1982, he wrote that he was highly critical of pro-lifers in general and Catholics in particular.