Sponsor of Georgia abortion ban spared trauma of watching brain dead loved one carry fetus
Doctors and lawyers at Emory Healthcare – but mainly the lawyers, I suspect – say that under Georgia's anti-abortion law, they are required to keep Adriana's body functioning as the fetus inside her develops. (Photo by John McCosh/Georgia Recorder)
By most common measures, the life of Adriana Smith ended three months ago, when a tragic series of undiagnosed blood clots left her brain dead, with no hope of recovery. Yet today, in a hospital room in Midtown Atlanta, Adriana's body is still being kept alive by machines, without regard to her family's wishes.
As someone who has been there, I know how difficult and extremely personal that decision can be, but I can only imagine what it must be like to have that choice stripped away, as it has been stripped away from Adriana's loved ones by people who don't know them, who know little of their circumstances, and deal with none of its consequences.
In Adriana's case, she was nine weeks pregnant at the time the blood clots hit, which under some readings of Georgia law has meant that what remains of Adriana's body is now under government control until the fetus can be safely extracted.
'She's been breathing through machines for more than 90 days,' April Newkirk, Adriana's mother, told 11Alive News. 'It's torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there.'
Doctors and lawyers at Emory Healthcare – but mainly the lawyers, I suspect – say that under Georgia's anti-abortion law, they are required to keep Adriana's body functioning as the fetus inside her develops. They are erring on the side of caution – not medical caution, but legal caution.
The law in question is the 'Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act.' or the LIFE Act.
The main sponsor of that law, state Sen. Ed Setzler, says it's working as intended in this case.
'I'm proud that the hospital recognizes the full value of the small human life living inside of this regrettably dying young mother,' Setzler told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 'Mindful of the agony of this young mother's family, the wisdom of modern medical science to be able to save the life of a healthy unborn child is something that I trust in future years will lead to great joy, with this child having a chance to grow into vibrant adulthood.'
Proud as he might be, Setzler isn't the one who has to watch what's left of his daughter lay lifeless in that hospital room, not alive exactly, with machines performing basic life functions, week after week. He isn't the one who has to explain what's happening to his seven-year-old grandson, Adriana's son. If the fetus survives, he also isn't the one who will have to raise the child. Doctors have warned Adriana's family that the fetus has fluid on its brain, with unknown consequences.
'She's pregnant with my grandson,' Newkirk said. 'But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born,' she said. 'This decision should've been left to us.'
According to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, however, Emory Healthcare and Setzler are misreading the legislation.
'There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death,' his office said in a statement. 'Removing life support is not an action 'with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy'.'
Carr's reading of the law seems to be correct. As his statement indicates, the law defines abortion as 'the act of using, prescribing, or administering any instrument, substance, device, or other means with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy,' and the withdrawal of extraordinary life-maintenance measures on a brain-dead woman would not fall within its restrictions.
But this is the problem when you try to write a law into black and white, when you try to legislate what is right and what is wrong when dealing with decisions that are so personal, so intimate. Moral certainty sounds good, it may feel good, it may play well in a political campaign, but it cannot possibly make such hard choices from a distance. The law cannot act more wisely or with more love than would those who know the situation best.
This story first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, a member with the Phoenix in the nonprofit States Newsroom.
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Lawmakers want clarification on abortion bill after controversy over brain-dead pregnant woman
Some Democratic state senators are demanding that the state attorney general clarify just what the Georgia Life Act covers. The law essentially bans all abortions in Georgia after about six weeks. The move comes over controversy surrounding the case of Adriana Smith, a pregnant woman from Lithonia. Her mother said she's brain-dead but is being kept on life support at Emory Midtown. The mother said they couldn't remove that life support because it would impact the baby's life, and Emory said it would violate Georgia's abortion law. Emory cannot comment on the case because of federal privacy laws, but did issue a statement which reads in part, 'Emory Healthcare 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 law.' TRENDING STORIES: Tornado touches down in Henry County, 18-year-old critically injured 'Life doesn't feel real:' Family mourns GA 9-year-old found shot in car SWAT team, multiple DeKalb police units respond to barricaded suspect on Lavista Road Smith's mother initially supported an abortion but told Channel 2's Richard Elliot off-camera that she supports the child's birth. On Thursday, some Democratic state lawmakers demanded that Gov. Brian Kemp request a formal legal opinion from the Attorney General's office about the Life Act. 'We said this law is vague,' State Rep. Park Cannon said. The AG's office said last week that the Life Act doesn't apply in the Smith case, and in a statement, the governor's office said, 'Holding a partisan press conference does not change the fact that the attorney general's office has already answered this question in the clearest possible terms.' Still, Duluth Democrat Nabilah Islam-Parkes thinks an official opinion is needed. 'We are calling on the governor to do his job and request a formal opinion from the AG telling the people of Georgia what this law actually means,' Islam-Parkes said. Republican state Sen. Ed Setzler wrote the Life Act. In a statement, he said that his heart goes out to Smith and her family. He also condemned those Democrats, saying they were hurting Smith's family by dragging them through 'a sick political debate.'
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Note: This article contains mention of medical abuse and loss of life, including that of an infant. Adriana Smith is a 30-year-old Black nurse and mother in Georgia. She was about nine weeks pregnant with a boy in February when her boyfriend woke up to her gasping for air in her sleep and gurgling. Her mother told the media that her daughter had sought treatment at Northside Hospital the previous night and was released after being administered medication, but no CT scans or other tests. Smith was taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta "with severe head pains," according to MSNBC. "A CT scan showed blood clots in her brain, and soon physicians declared Smith to be brain-dead." She has now been on life support for over 90 days. The murky legality around this centers on Georgia's LIFE Act, a law banning most abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy once "fetal cardiac activity can be detected" — aka Georgia's heartbeat law. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law in 2019, but it was only invoked once Roe v. Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2022. Officials seem to be in disagreement about the interpretation of the law, though. The office of the Georgia Attorney General issued a statement reading, "There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death. Removing life support is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy." However, Ed Setzler, a Republican state senator who sponsored the 2019 bill, said he thinks it's "completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child [...] I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital is acting appropriately." Medical staff at Emory, where Adriana Smith worked, have been ignoring the wishes of her family in favor of the law, which leaves a glaring gray area in the case of a legally dead mother. Brain death is "the legal and medical standard for death in the United States." Smith's mother and family have expressed that they've had virtually no say in her medical care or that of her fetus. "She's been breathing through machines for more than 90 days," her mother said. "It's torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there. And her son — I bring him to see her." The family has reportedly been by her side every day since she was admitted to the hospital. Smith's young son reportedly thinks his mother is just sleeping. According to Atlanta television station WXIA-TV, "The plan now is to keep Smith alive until doctors believe the baby can survive outside the womb — likely at 32 weeks gestation." That would mean 10 more weeks on life support; Smith's family said doctors have told them there are no other legal ways to proceed. "This decision should've been left to us. Now we're left wondering what kind of life he'll have — and we're going to be the ones raising him," Smith's mother said. She told WXIA-TV that the family is concerned about the health of Smith's baby, as doctors have told them he has fluid on the brain. "[Adriana] is pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born," Smith's mother said. Many people have taken to social media to express their outrage over the anti-abortion legal and medical system that has allowed Adriana Smith to be kept alive by machines for the sake of preserving her pregnancy. Related: This Reporter's Reaction To Donald Trump Talking About The Declaration Of Independence Is Going Viral "I'm the mother of a brain-dead son whose organs were donated," said TikTok user Jennifer Comstock (@positivejen) in a video earlier this week. "People need to understand what it's like to keep a brain-dead body alive." She goes on to explain that it took time for the hospital to stabilize and prepare his organs for donation and to find suitable recipients because of his blood type. "So I sat in that hospital bed with him for two days, because despite the fact that he was legally dead, that was my baby, and I wasn't leaving him in that hospital alone," she says. "During that two days, the amount of interventions they had to do to keep my son's body was unbelievable," Comstock says. "Obviously, he was on a ventilator, but you also can't regulate your own heartbeat. You can't maintain your own blood pressure. They're giving you all kinds of medications [...] His kidneys were failing. They had to give him medication to fix that." She goes on: "They would fix one thing, and another thing would go wrong. And sitting there watching it felt wrong. It was horrible watching what they were doing to him." But, as Comstock says, there's one major difference between the case of her 30-year-old son and that of Adriana Smith: "My son wanted to be an organ donor, and that is why we continued to do it. And my son saved lives," she said. "But I don't think you guys understand. This woman is not in a vegetative state; she's not in a coma. She's dead." "Her body is not functioning. Her brain is not producing the hormones required to sustain a pregnancy." "This family is being put to torture. I did this of my own free will, and I am still traumatized," she concludes. Related: A Clip Of Donald Trump Getting Angry After Being Fact-Checked Is Going Mega Viral, And It Sums Up His Entire Presidency In A Nutshell People replied to the video in droves. This person wrote about how having a body that is technically "alive" is only one part of the equation in a healthy pregnancy. Someone else echoed what Jennifer said in the video about the crucial difference in having the choice to be kept on life support; she replied, "Pregnant Georgia women seem to belong to the state not to them selves." A lot of other folks just said that what's happening to Adriana Smith is wrong: Another creator, Grace Wells (@0fficial.c0wgirl on TikTok), made a video with the heading, "What does it mean to be born of a corpse?" "Adriana smith deserves to rest. Her family deserves peace. Humanity deserves safety from birth by corpse," she captioned the video. "You think that a brain-dead person just isn't conscious anymore and their body's all working and so their body's just gonna grow the baby either way?" she says. "That's not what's happening." "It is not pro-life to force a child to be born of a corpse," Grace repeats twice. "And what are the medical implications of a fetus gestating in the chemical environment of a corpse, of a brain-dead person who has to be on medication to regulate every single bodily function because their brain cannot do it because they are dead?" "You can't even eat lunch meat when you are pregnant. But you think it's pro-life to force a brain-dead person, a corpse, to be medically kept some semblance of alive to force the birth of a 9-week-old fetus?" Wells says. "If that's something that you can justify, we have very different interpretations of what is sacred," Wells says. "What does it mean for us as a society that we are attempting to do this as a political stunt? Force a child to be born of a corpse." She also says that if Smith's child is born healthy enough to grow up, they will "live with the public political fear of keeping their dead mother on life support [...] following them for the rest of their life. That's not pro-life. That's not compassionate. It's not Christian. It's not healthy. It's disgusting. It's desecration of a corpse. It's horrific." The comments resoundingly agreed. Some pointed out how Adriana Smith's case joins the long history of medical abuse and racism toward Black women. "It's so sick. I also think about trauma and medical debt they are laying on her poor family," this person wrote. One user pointed out the hypocrisy of this case within the "pro-life" movement. And finally, someone shared the haunting reality that may await Adriana Smith's unborn child: What are your thoughts? We want to hear in the comments. 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Adriana Smith is a 30-year-old Black nurse and mother in Georgia. She was about nine weeks pregnant with a boy in February when her boyfriend woke up to her gasping for air in her sleep and gurgling. Smith was taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta "with severe head pains," according to MSNBC. "A CT scan showed blood clots in her brain, and soon physicians declared Smith to be brain-dead." She has now been on life support for over 90 days. The murky legality around this centers on Georgia's LIFE Act, a law banning most abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy once "fetal cardiac activity can be detected" — aka Georgia's heartbeat law. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law in 2019, but it was only invoked once Roe v. Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2022. Medical staff at Emory, where Adriana Smith worked, have been ignoring the wishes of her family in favor of the law, which leaves a glaring gray area in the case of a legally dead mother. Brain death is "the legal and medical standard for death in the United States." Smith's mother and family have expressed that they've had virtually no say in her medical care or that of her fetus. "She's been breathing through machines for more than 90 days," her mother said. "It's torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there. And her son — I bring him to see her." According to Atlanta television station WXIA-TV, "The plan now is to keep Smith alive until doctors believe the baby can survive outside the womb — likely at 32 weeks gestation." That would mean 10 more weeks on life support; Smith's family said doctors have told them there are no other legal ways to proceed. "This decision should've been left to us. Now we're left wondering what kind of life he'll have — and we're going to be the ones raising him," Smith's mother said. She told WXIA-TV that the family is concerned about the health of Smith's baby, as doctors have told them he has fluid on the brain. "[Adriana] is pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born," Smith's mother said. Many people have taken to social media to express their outrage over the anti-abortion legal and medical system that has allowed Adriana Smith to be kept alive by machines for the sake of preserving her pregnancy. "I'm the mother of a brain-dead son whose organs were donated," said TikTok user Jennifer Comstock (@positivejen) in a video earlier this week. "People need to understand what it's like to keep a brain-dead body alive." She goes on to explain that it took time for the hospital to stabilize and prepare his organs for donation and to find suitable recipients because of his blood type. "So I sat in that hospital bed with him for two days, because despite the fact that he was legally dead, that was my baby, and I wasn't leaving him in that hospital alone," she says. "During that two days, the amount of interventions they had to do to keep my son's body was unbelievable," Comstock says. "Obviously, he was on a ventilator, but you also can't regulate your own heartbeat. You can't maintain your own blood pressure. They're giving you all kinds of medications [...] His kidneys were failing. They had to give him medication to fix that." She goes on: "They would fix one thing, and another thing would go wrong. And sitting there watching it felt wrong. It was horrible watching what they were doing to him." But, as Comstock says, there's one major difference between the case of her 30-year-old son and that of Adriana Smith: "My son wanted to be an organ donor, and that is why we continued to do it. And my son saved lives," she said. "But I don't think you guys understand. This woman is not in a vegetative state; she's not in a coma. She's dead." "Her body is not functioning. Her brain is not producing the hormones required to sustain a pregnancy." "This family is being put to torture. I did this of my own free will, and I am still traumatized," she concludes. People replied to the video in droves. This person wrote about how having a body that is technically "alive" is only one part of the equation in a healthy pregnancy. Someone else echoed what Jennifer said in the video about the crucial difference in having the choice to be kept on life support; she replied, "Pregnant Georgia women seem to belong to the state not to them selves." A lot of other folks just said that what's happening to Adriana Smith is wrong: Another creator, Grace Wells (@0fficial.c0wgirl on TikTok), made a video with the heading, "What does it mean to be born of a corpse?" "You think that a brain-dead person just isn't conscious anymore and their body's all working and so their body's just gonna grow the baby either way?" she says. "That's not what's happening." "It is not pro-life to force a child to be born of a corpse," Grace repeats twice. "And what are the medical implications of a fetus gestating in the chemical environment of a corpse, of a brain-dead person who has to be on medication to regulate every single bodily function because their brain cannot do it because they are dead?" "If that's something that you can justify, we have very different interpretations of what is sacred," Wells says. "What does it mean for us as a society that we are attempting to do this as a political stunt? Force a child to be born of a corpse." The comments resoundingly agreed. Some pointed out how Adriana Smith's case joins the long history of medical abuse and racism toward Black women. "It's so sick. I also think about trauma and medical debt they are laying on her poor family," this person wrote. One user pointed out the hypocrisy of this case within the "pro-life" movement. And finally, someone shared the haunting reality that may await Adriana Smith's unborn child: What are your thoughts? We want to hear in the comments.
