Parents of Schiavo allow direct-mailing firm to sell list of supporters
WASHINGTON 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 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!"
Experts on privacy and law said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable. "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 about everybody."
Executives of Response Unlimited declined to comment. Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Communication Network and a spokesman for Schiavo's parents, confirmed that Schindler had agreed to let Response Unlimited rent out the list as part of a deal for the firm to send out an e-mail solicitation raising money on the family's behalf. The Schindlers have waged a lengthy legal battle against their son-in-law, Michael Schiavo, to prevent the removal of the feeding tube from their daughter, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state.
McCullough said he was present when Schindler agreed to the arrangement in a conversation with Phil Sheldon, co-founder of a conservative online marketing organization, Rightmarch.com, who acted as a broker for Response Unlimited.
How much attention they paid to the matter is hard to assess, he added. "The Schindlers right now know that their daughter is starving to death, and if I ask about anything else, they say, 'I don't want to hear about it."'
Direct mail and mass e-mailings are ubiquitous tools of interest groups on the left as well as the right, and others in the business defended the sale of lists like the roster of donors to the Schindlers as a useful way for potential donors to learn of causes that might appeal to them.
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