Cromwell Crawford Speaks at Eastern

Written by Kevin Antonucci

Willimantic, Conn. - "'Namaskara,' which means 'I bow to the light within you,'" said Cromwell Crawford, professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, as he greeted more than 100 students, faculty and staff in the Paul E. Johnson Sr. Community Conference Room at Eastern Connecticut State University on Oct. 15.

Crawford continued, "I haven't seen snow in many years and so I will not look at it; I will look at all of your faces and become warm that way." Crawford's lecture, which was sponsored by Eastern's Peace and Human Rights and Arts and Lecture committees, focused on timeless values such as justice, human rights, suffering and freedom and how they all are connected to the current bioethics debate.

Crawford said medicine should focus on prevention and promoting healthy lifestyles as much as it does on modern technology. He believes that health care should be a right because good health is essential to one's being, and says that it should not be considered as an industry or commodity.

"Religion tends to be divisive with ideas based on revelation. Those revelations often force people to follow the styles of philosophy, rather than religion itself," said Crawford when speaking of the roles that religion plays in different cultures. "Religion had hardly any sense of what technology would emerge to be today."

Crawford said that there were four important goals that medical technology seeks to fulfill. The first is the focus on disease and injury prevention and the promotion of good health. The second is to relieve pain and suffering. The third goal is to promote the power of hope, giving a positive view of the next day ahead, while the fourth and final objective is the avoidance of a premature death.