# How long before we tear down the Schindlers?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 29, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823 "2005-03-29T19:45:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/1 "2005-03-29T19:45:52Z")
This is not a thread to discuss Ms. Schiavo’s condition. legality and personhood etc, there are numerous really good threads in the Pit, General Questions and here in GD.
I’ve noticed slowly, the longer Ms. Schiavo stays alive, the less, shall we say ‘consideration’ the Schindlers appear to be receiving. I wonder if ‘our’ passion for tearing down what we’ve elevated will once again ring true?
The Schindlers have just sold the names of their donators to a marketing firm:
> [@](#):
>
> 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.”
>
> Executives of Response Unlimited declined to comment. Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Communication Network and a spokesman for Ms. Schiavo’s parents, confirmed that Mr. Schindler had agreed to let Response Unlimited rent out the list as part of a deal for the firm to send 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.
>
> Mr. McCullough said he was present when Mr. Schindler agreed to the arrangement in a conversation with Phil Sheldon, the co-founder of a conservative online marketing organization, [RightMarch.com](http://RightMarch.com), who acted as a broker for Response Unlimited.
>
> “So the Schindlers do know the details,” Mr. McCullough said on Monday. 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 fund-raising tools of interest groups on the left as well as the right, and others in the direct-mail 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.
>
> Pamela Hennessy, an unpaid spokeswoman for the Schindlers, said she was initially appalled when she learned of the list’s existence.
>
> “It is possibly the most distasteful thing I have ever seen,” Ms. Hennessy said. “Everybody is making a buck off of her.”
[NY Times Registration Required]([http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html&OP=31c1d4ed/2(Q5Dn26Q2Ao@-Q2AQ2AQ24Q232Q23PP.2PQ202Q2332mQ2AjQ5EQ24Q5Eo@2Q2336Q2A|RQ24Q5DQ60Q25Q24dj)](http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html&OP=31c1d4ed/2(Q5Dn26Q2Ao@-Q2AQ2AQ24Q232Q23PP.2PQ202Q2332mQ2AjQ5EQ24Q5Eo@2Q2336Q2A%7CRQ24Q5DQ60Q25Q24dj))
[Sex offender](http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000856102) in the forefront.
> [@](#):
>
> As protests outside the hospice housing Terri Schiavo in her final days mounted last week, numerous newspaper reports, many based on an Associated Press account, mentioned or quoted 10-year-old Joshua Heldreth and/or his father, Scott Heldreth. Josh was one of several youngsters arrested for crossing police lines in Pinellas Park, Fla., in an effort to take water to Schiavo.
>
> None of the stories revealed that Scott Heldreth, a religious activist and anti-abortion crusader, is a registered sex offender in Florida-- until The Charlotte Observer mentioned it on Sunday.
And now Jessie Jackson enters the fray…You have the crowds turning on Ms. Schiavo’s brother when he asked them leave and be with their OWN families. You have at least one case of a family missing a loved one’s passing, because they couldn’t get through the crowds and security.
What will it take, for the media to stop treating the Schindlers and their “spokespeople” with kid gloves? A what point will the American public turn on them and tear them to pieces or will the story end once Ms. Schiavo dies and there’s nothing else of her to sell?
---
### Author:  [@5\_time\_champ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5_time_champ)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/2 "2005-03-29T20:10:40Z")
I lost any respect and compassion that I had for them, and I actually had a lot back when this started, when the they allowed a terrorist like Randall Terry DIRECTLY speak for them.
---
### Author:  [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/3 "2005-03-29T20:17:08Z")
I lost my respect for the Schindlers when I found out they turned on Michael only after he denied promising to share half of Terri’s malpractice settlement with them.
Anyone who thinks the Schindlers are innocent lambs who simply want to save Terri from her big, bad, heartless husband has been completely duped by the media circus spin.
---
### Author:  [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/4 "2005-03-29T20:36:17Z")
Given their disturbing denial of the reality of their daughters state, I’ve really never had any respect for them. Anything else they do simply adds justification.
---
### Author:  [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/5 "2005-03-29T20:47:05Z")
The Randall Terry thing did it for me, as well…though I have to say that hearing that they’d be willing to subject Terri to amputation and surgeries to keep her alive pretty much had me wanting them put away somewhere. Whatever their politics, it is clear to me that they are insane, and have been since almost day 1.
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/6 "2005-03-29T21:39:33Z")
> [@Stonebow](#):
>
> The Randall Terry thing did it for me, as well…though I have to say that hearing that they’d be willing to subject Terri to amputation and surgeries to keep her alive pretty much had me wanting them put away somewhere. Whatever their politics, it is clear to me that they are insane, and have been since almost day 1.
Insane my ass. Crazy like a fox, perhaps. They’re motivated by money. That’s why they started the feud with Schiavo in the first place - they wanted a fat cut of the cash - and look at what they’re doing now. It’s all about the lucre.
---
### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/7 "2005-03-29T21:50:36Z")
I have to cut them some slack - their daughter has died. That’s a _very_ rough thing to go through (I saw it when my sister’s 21-year-old daughter was killed 11 years ago). I can’t really blame them for anything they’ve done, but I am frustrated that our courts let them hamper her husband from doing what he obivously legally needs to do.
---
### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/8 "2005-03-29T22:01:27Z")
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t seventy-five percent of the American public against them already? And the remaining twenty-five percent would believe that the sky was green if their preachers told them so, so I doubt there’s going to be further mass movement against them. Just like the Ten Commandments brouhaha in Alabama and the manufactured outrage about Janet Jackson’s nipple, this is all an attempt by the mass media to exaggerate the size and power of the far right.
As for me personally, I was against them since they decided to use their daughter’s body as a football for their pet causes and financial interests. Anyone who’s surprised that they sold the donor list to spammers is a flat-out moron.
---
### Author:  [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/9 "2005-03-29T22:33:33Z")
Last I heard, most Americans were against the Congresscritters and Presidents who were butting into the families’ private affairs. I haven’t heard anything that the same disdain was being applied to the Schindlers.
---
### Author:  [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/10 "2005-03-29T23:07:24Z")
I lost a lot of respect for the right-to-life side of the Schaivo argument when the started vilify Michael Schaivo, saying he’d put Terry in the hospital, that he was trying to kill her to make a buck or that he was betraying her by living with his current gf. As a result, I’m wary of similar stories about the Schindlers. Without strong evidence to the contrary, I’ll presume that they are as they say, berived parents who are hoping, regardless of how illogically, that their daughter still exists.
---
### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/11 "2005-03-29T23:39:51Z")
I’m going to cut the parents a full metric assload of slack. Misguided as they are, they feel they are trying to save their daughter.
---
### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/12 "2005-03-29T23:57:49Z")
I was willing to cut the parents a lot of slack before, but between the slanderous allegations against Michael and their utter contempt for the idea of “dignity”–as evidenced by that ghastly audio clip they released last week–I have no sympathy for them anymore.
---
### Author:  [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/13 "2005-03-30T00:00:08Z")
I was going to cut them a full metric assload of slack too, but it dropped to a standard assload (US) when I heard that they sold the list of donor’s names to a direct-mailing firm.
> **[List of Schiavo Donors Will Be Sold by Direct-Marketing Firm (Published 2005)](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/list-of-schiavo-donors-will-be-sold-by-directmarketing-firm.html)**
>
> Parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized conservative direct-mailing firm to sell list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by their plight will receive steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion...
> [@](#):
>
> WASHINGTON, March 28 - 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.
---
### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/14 "2005-03-30T00:04:47Z")
> [@Malodorous](#):
>
> I lost a lot of respect for the right-to-life side of the Schaivo argument when the started vilify Michael Schaivo, saying he’d put Terry in the hospital, that he was trying to kill her to make a buck…
Quite a bit of the opposite going on as well, you know. In this very thread we have claims that the parents are just in it for a cut of the money. (I’m sure that not seeing their daughter starved to death had nothing to do with it. It must have be for the loot!) Those claims are just as unfounded, but why don’t they bother you?
> [@](#):
>
> …or that he was betraying her by living with his current gf.
He has every right to move on. That said, to stay ‘married’ while starting a new family is beyond goofy. And then there is the whole ‘Oh ya, 6 years after the fact, _now_ I remember that she wouldn’t want to stay alive.’ from Michael.
While I do think the parents are misguided, even more misguided are the people that happily gobble up whatever Michael says.
---
### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/15 "2005-03-30T00:23:42Z")
> [@Brutus](#):
>
> Quite a bit of the opposite going on as well, you know. In this very thread we have claims that the parents are just in it for a cut of the money. (I’m sure that not seeing their daughter starved to death had nothing to do with it. It must have be for the loot!) Those claims are just as unfounded, but why don’t they bother you?
There’s a pretty solid consensus that the parties fell out due to money reasons _long_ before treatments were stopped.
> [@](#):
>
> While I do think the parents are misguided, even more misguided are the people that happily gobble up whatever Michael says.
Perhaps not as much as people who ignore the facts of the case, like how the judgment was reached.
Personally, I feel sorry for the Schindlers and I’ve tried to have sympathy… but they’ve just lied too many times. Their admission that they would ignore Terri’s wishes to die even if she’d flat-out told them doesn’t help.
---
### Author:  [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/16 "2005-03-30T00:33:28Z")
> [@Brutus](#):
>
> Quite a bit of the opposite going on as well, you know. In this very thread we have claims that the parents are just in it for a cut of the money. (I’m sure that not seeing their daughter starved to death had nothing to do with it. It must have be for the loot!) Those claims are just as unfounded, but why don’t they bother you?
???The entire point of my post was that attacks on the Schindler’s **did** bother me, for the same reasons that the attacks on Michael Schaivo did.
> [@](#):
>
> He has every right to move on. That said, to stay ‘married’ while starting a new family is beyond goofy.
I think that in the same situation I might do the same thing. “Till Death do us Part” and all that. I would stay married to my wife, even while I move on, because I feel that I’m still obligated to her, in providing medical care and seeing that her wishes are carried out, until she is dead and buried.
> [@](#):
>
> And then there is the whole ‘Oh ya, 6 years after the fact, _now_ I remember that she wouldn’t want to stay alive.’ from Michael.
My understanding was that Terri had wanted to be taken off life support if it was evident that she wouldn’t recover. After six years, Michael decided, not that his recollection of his wife’s wishes had changed, but that it had become evident that she was indeed unable to make any sort of meaningful recovery.
---
### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/17 "2005-03-30T00:36:28Z")
> [@Malodorous](#):
>
> ???The entire point of my post was that attacks on the Schindler’s **did** bother me, for the same reasons that the attacks on Michael Schaivo did.
I misread your post. Sorry about that.
> [@](#):
>
> I think that in the same situation I might do the same thing. “Till Death do us Part” and all that. I would stay married to my wife, even while I move on, because I feel that I’m still obligated to her, in providing medical care and seeing that her wishes are carried out, until she is dead and buried.
I dunno about that. Once you shack up with some other chick and have a few kids with her, the (original) marriage is meaningless. If you wouldn’t do it when she was awake, I don’t see how her being in whatever state makes it OK.
---
### Author:  [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/18 "2005-03-30T00:44:23Z")
> [@Brutus](#):
>
> I dunno about that. Once you shack up with some other chick and have a few kids with her, the (original) marriage is meaningless. If you wouldn’t do it when she was awake, I don’t see how her being in whatever state makes it OK.
What if the “whatever state” is death, only it is not official (no certificate) due to the actions of the parents? Mr. Schiavo could have made millions by divorcing his wife and giving up his next of kin status. He does what he does to honor her wishes.
---
### Author:  [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/19 "2005-03-30T01:30:19Z")
> [@Brutus](#):
>
> He has every right to move on. That said, to stay ‘married’ while starting a new family is beyond goofy.
Why? Seriously, what’s goofy about it? It would make more sense to just abandon his wife? Or it would make more sense to have no personal life until she dies? Which would you pick if you were in his place?
> [@Brutus](#):
>
> And then there is the whole ‘Oh ya, 6 years after the fact, _now_ I remember that she wouldn’t want to stay alive.’ from Michael.
I am **so** tired of hearing this trotted out as a strike against Michael. Take just a few seconds and think it through: You’re married, you love your wife. At some time while you’re watching a TV show about people in comas, your wife makes it known to you that she would not want to be kept alive in that state. Sometime later, you experience the horror of your wife actually being in that state. What, you think that right away, you’d start in with “Pull the plug; no feeding tube; she said she didn’t want to be kept alive like that”? I hardly think so. You’d spend time trying to see if she could recover. You’d spend years trying all the techniques you could, getting multiple opinions, trying everything. Only after you had exhausted every available avenue and had very reluctantly accepted the fact that she was in a PVS with just zero chance of recovery would you then sadly express your wife’s wishes to not be kept alive like that.
It’s just totally reasonable and rational that Michael would wait many years before indicating his wife’s wishes to not be kept alive like that. Hell, the same people that are using his delay in saying it as ammunition against him would have vilified him even more if he’d started talking about it right away! Talk about a no-win situation.
---
### Author:  [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823/20 "2005-03-30T01:32:11Z")
**Brutus** , please refer to the many other threads, primarily the gargantuan pit thread about the Schiavo case with your various thoughts on Michael. This thread is about the Schindlers.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-before-we-tear-down-the-schindlers/296823.md?page=2)