It’s difficult not to sympathize with the pain Terri Schiavo’s parents are feeling; losing a child must cause anguish that I can’t even imagine. Having said that, this hardly seems like the appropriate way to deal with their sorrow.
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.
“These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler’s legal battle to keep Terri’s estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri,” says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo’s father. “These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!”
Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.
“I think it’s amusing,” said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. “I think it’s absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information.”
The family probably has legal bills and expenses. Fine. But well-intentioned people have opened their hearts and their wallets to this family, and few of them expected to have their personal information sold.
Pamela Hennessy, the Schindlers’ unpaid spokesperson, said, “It is possibly the most distasteful thing I have ever seen. Everybody is making a buck off of her.” While I sympathize with the family’s loss, it’s hard not to disagree with Hennessy’s disgust.