Husband rejects million-dollar offer to keep brain-damaged wife alive
MIAMI : The husband of a brain-damaged woman Friday rejected a one-million-dollar offer for him to reverse his decision to remove the feeding tube that has kept his wife alive for the past 15 years, his lawyer said.
After years of legal wrangling, a Florida judge this month has ordered the removal on March 18 of the feeding and hydration tubes that keep Terri Schiavo, 41, alive.
This week, a California businessman said he would give Michael Schiavo one million dollars to change his mind about having the tubes removed.
"Mr Schiavo categorically refused that offer," his lawyer, George Felos, told AFP.
"He has received many offers of money to walk away from this case. He's refused them all," the lawyer said, adding that one of the offers was for 10 million dollars.
"He has made a promise to Terri not to keep her alive artificially if something like this happened to her and there is no amount of money that anyone can offer that is going to cause him to turn his back on her, betray that promise," he said.
Michael Schiavo has been involved in a lengthy legal feud with his wife's parents who want to keep their daughter alive, rejecting doctors' claims that she is in a permanent vegetative state.
The parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have filed several motions seeking to delay removal of the tubes, but Pinellas County Judge George Greer this week rejected their request to have further medical evaluations performed and another to hand feed her if she is taken off life support.
Several Christian and conservative organizations, as well as politicians have joined the Schindlers' fight to keep their daughter alive.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a brother of the US president, is among those who have sought to prevent implementation of court orders to remove the tubes.
Earlier this week, two Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would give Schiavo and others in similar situations the right to a special federal court hearing and to be "afforded independent counsel to speak on their behalf."
Last month the US Supreme Court refused to hear arguments in the controversial case. - AFP
