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Terri Schiavo, Dr. Ronald Cranford, Michael Schiavo

Terri, the truth

By Judi McLeod
Friday, June 2, 2006

It seemed one of those bizarre coincidences that on the very day I turned with distaste from the display of Michael Schiavo's book at Toronto's World's Biggest Bookstore, came the news of the death of Dr. Ronald Cranford.

"How much money will Michael Schiavo net on his recently released book, Terri the truth? I pondered at World's Biggest.

Dr. Cranford, described in media obituaries as "The University of Minnesota medical ethicist thrust into the spotlight during the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case" died Wednesday morning at age 65 after a two-and-a-half battle with cancer.

"May he rest in peace and in eternal judgment," wrote Mary LaFrancis, retired RN in Fairfield, Iowa, who sent the obit.

If Cranford, who nicknamed himself "Dr. Humane Death", was thrust into the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case, it was the kind of thrust whose push came from fellow right-to-die activists like Michael Schiavo and lawyer George Felos.

In life and death, Dr. Cranford had the privilege of being allowed to make his own choices.

On March 31, the one-year anniversary of Terri's death, the noted neurologist appeared with Judge Greer and Schiavo at Boston University. Dr. Cranford's most recent public appearance to discuss the Schiavo case was at the University of Pennsylvania bioethics symposium, held april 30 and May 1 in Philadelphia.

In the human drama that thrust Terri Schindler Schiavo's deathwatch into the world spotlight, Cranford played the key role; He was the "medical witness" as the neurologist handpicked by Michael Schiavo and his attorney, George Felos in proceedings before Pinellas County probate court judge George W. Greer in 2003. It was Cranford who started the clock ticking towards Terri's certain death by declaring that there was no hope for recovery for her brain damage that she was in a "persistent vegetative state".

Greer, in turn declared that the disabled Terri was PVS and ordered her death by removal of her nutrition and hydration,

By 1991, when Cranford told reporters that he wanted to be known as "Dr. Humane Death", he had already publicly claimed to have facilitated the deaths of between 25 and 50 disabled patients by removing feeding tubes.

a one time member of the board of directors of the Choice in Dying Society, an organization that got its start when the Society for the Right to Die and Concern for Dying merged in 1991, Cranford wrote a 1997 op-ed in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, advocating the death of alzheimer's patients.

Cranford died at N.C. Little Hospice in Edina, where undoubtedly nutrition and hydration were non-issues.

Meanwhile Michael Schiavo's book is alive and well, right alongside The Da Vinci Code down at the local bookstore.

…"You think you know the whole story.

"But you didn't know the truth," is how Schiavo touts his book. "a religious zealot offered $250,000 to anyone who would kill me. My two babies were threatened with death. I was condemned by the president, the majority leaders of the House and Senate, the governor of Florida, the pope (sic), and the right-wing media, all because I was doing what Terri–the woman I loved–wanted, I didn't respond to their attacks.

"I didn't confront their lies.

"Until now."

It's true that Michael Schiavo "didn't confront their lies". Right after the death of the "woman he loved", he went into hiding. Schiavo also married the mother of his babies.

The 2005 death of Pope Paul John II totally eclipsed what some felt would be the cruel antics of the Death Society in the aftermath of Terri's death.

The world turned its eyes from a Florida hospice to a certain apartment in Rome,

Judge Greer and lawyer Felos faded like everyday Florida sunsets from the media spotlight, only mentioned ever so briefly in a series of right-to-die based symposiums.

Dr. Humane Death is gone.

Poetic justice that through all of this the spirit of Terri Schindler-Schiavo lives on.

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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