Million-Dollar Booby Trap

UPDATE, 8:45 a.m.: CBS Radio reports that Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, has rejected the million-dollar offer described below.

The blog world is abuzz today with word that a businessman has offered Michael Schiavo $1 million to give up claims to guardianship of his wife Terri and allow her parents to have guardianship instead—saving her life.

Richard of the indispensable Terri news site Blogs for Terri is skeptical—justifiably so, considering Michael's having declined Terri's parents' offer to let him have their daughter's insurance money in exchange for letting her live:

I doubt it will have much of an effect on Michael Schiavo since he can't spend the money in jail should Terri receive therapy and recover sufficiently to tell us how she sustained all of those broken bones. Until and unless he accepts the offer, it's just another new whisper in the wind.

Beyond the fact that it's unlikely Michael would accept such an offer or that Judge George Greer—who has ordered Terri's death by starvation—would approve it, there are other aspects of this offer that should raise large warning signs for Terri's supporters:

• The lawyer who announced the offer is not exactly a friend of the culture of life. She's Gloria Allred, an outspoken left-wing feminist and crusader for abortion rights.


• The press release about the offer mentions twice that the businessman who's putting up the money, Robert Herring Sr., is doing so because he wants to see Terri benefit from stem-cell research. "I believe very strongly that there are medical advances happening around the globe that very shortly could have a positive impact on Terri's condition," he said. "I have seen miraculous recoveries occur through the use of stem cells in patients suffering a variety of conditions."
  
  Herring does not specify whether he means adult stem cells or embryonic ones. There is little doubt in my mind that his neglecting to distinguish between the two types demonstrates that he does not particularly care. The fact that just before California's bill for public funding of embryonic stem-cell research came up for a referendum, his television network, Wealth TV, offered stations a glowing series about stem-cell research free of charge, further suggests his enthusiasm for such research. The series' episodes were titled "Profiles of Courage" and "Fountain of Youth."

However much Herring may care about Terri, his personal agenda puts her at risk of being being a pawn in his campaign for dangerous and unethical embryonic stem-cell research.

If it's God's will that Terri be rescued, and I hope and pray that it is, I believe He'll bring help from another quarter. Can you imagine Terri, a committed Catholic, allowing human lives to be destroyed for her potential benefit? I hate to say it, but I believe she'd rather die.