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Catholic World News News Feature

Former "vegetative" patient speaks at Schiavo rally March 16, 2005

Last Saturday a rally of over 300 supporters of Terri Schiavo and her family's battle to save her life heard the firsthand account of the sufferings and remarkable recovery of Kate Adamson. Struck down in 1995 at the age of thirty-three by a rare double brain stem stroke, Adamson, then a mother of two young girls, was completely paralyzed; she was unable even to blink her eyes. Like Terri Shiavo, the medical staff treating her questioned the merit of continuing the administering of food and water.

Terri Schiavo, although not nearly as severely disabled as Adamson once appeared to be, is slated to have her feeding tube removed at 1 pm this Friday. Like Terri, at one point Kate Adamson's feeding tube was removed for a full eight days before being reinserted due to the intervention of her husband (also a competent lawyer).

Frequently described by medical authorities as a humane way to die, Adamson-- now nearly fully recovered from her stroke-- testified before the crowd that this form of legalized execution was "one of the most painful experiences you can imagine." Unable to respond or to indicate awareness, Kate Adamson asserts, "I was just like Terri...but I was alive! I could hear every word. They were saying 'shall we just not treat her?'...I suffered excruciating misery in silence."

This personal testimony confirms what Terri supporters have long held-- that the execution sought by her husband Michael Schiavo is anything but painless and humane. Furthermore, Kate's remarkable recovery to nearly full mental and physical health-- she still suffers partial paralysis of her left side-- gives Terri supporters hope that Terri too may still experience a similar recovery, if granted proper care and treatment.

During her early-afternoon speech Kate declared that "If they want to kill Terri they should have the guts to put a gun to her head" rather than condemn her to such a slow and painful death. She finished off by summing up the full import of the Schiavo case, saying, "The measure of a society is how they treat the least of us. Life is sacred or meaningless, there is nothing in between."