A medically brain-dead pregnant woman in the U.S. state of Georgia is being kept alive on a ventilator until her baby can be born because removing the patient’s life support would constitute an illegal abortion based on state laws.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, has been in a vegetative state since February. However, doctors are unable to humanely end her life due to Georgia’s strict anti-abortion legislation, which came into effect after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Though legally dead, Smith will likely remain on life support for months until her baby can be safely delivered.
Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, told Atlanta news station WXIA in February that her daughter had been experiencing intense headaches, and was admitted to Northside Hospital more than three months earlier, but was released after receiving medication.
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The morning after being released, Smith’s boyfriend woke up to her gasping for air and called the emergency services. Medical staff at Emory University Hospital determined she had blood clots in her brain and declared her brain dead.
Newkirk said Smith is now 21 weeks pregnant. A full-term pregnancy is anywhere between 39 weeks to 40 weeks and six days, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and removing her breathing tubes and other life-saving supports would likely kill the fetus.
Neither hospital can comment on her case because of confidentiality laws, but Emory released a statement saying it “uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.”
“Our top priorities continue to be the safety and well-being of the patients we serve,” it concluded.
According to Smith’s family, her doctors said they are unable to switch off the machines keeping her alive because Georgia’s abortion laws forbid abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the fetus.
The law was adopted in 2019 but came into effect in 2022, which paved the way for state-specific abortion bans. Currently, there are 12 states banning abortion at all stages of pregnancy, and three, including Georgia, prohibit it after about six weeks.
Georgia’s Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act permits abortions if the pregnancy poses a threat to the mother’s life. An abortion is also allowed if the pregnancy is medically futile or the result of rape or incest, in which case it can be aborted up to 20 weeks of gestation — but both of these situations require a police report.
Smith’s family, including her five-year-old son, visits her in the hospital regularly, but Newkirk told WXIA that the fetus has fluid around its brain and that they are concerned for its health.
“She’s pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born,” Newkirk told the local outlet.
Monica Simpson, the executive director of the organization SisterSong, the primary plaintiff in a legal challenge to the state’s abortion ban, told the Guardian that Smith’s situation also raises issues over her family’s right to make decisions about her medical care.
“Her family deserved the right to have decision-making power about her medical decisions,” Simpson said. “Instead, they have endured over 90 days of retraumatization, expensive medical costs, and the cruelty of being unable to resolve and move toward healing.”
Currently, the plan is to keep Smith on life support until the child can survive outside the womb; they are considered “viable” from about 24 weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
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