Legally dead pregnant mum kept alive on life support as foetus 'incubator'
Although Adriana Smith is essentially dead, because she's around 21 weeks pregnant, doctors are refusing to switch off her life support.
A pregnant mother who has been pronounced brain-dead is being kept alive against her family's wishes as a human "incubator" because she is carrying a foetus. And the foetus - now at around 21 weeks' gestation - may not even survive birth because tests have shown it has hydrocephalus, or fluid on the brain.
Three months ago, 30-year-old Adriana Smith was declared brain-dead after suffering blood clots on her brain. At the time she was around nine weeks pregnant and went to Atlanta's Northside Hospital seeking help for intense headaches, reports the Mirror.
The nurse went home after being given medication. However, the next morning her boyfriend woke to the sounds of her gasping for air and called for an ambulance, and she was rushed to Emory University Hospital.
Tragically, mum-of-one Adriana was declared brain-dead due to the clots on her brain - but because of draconian anti-abortion laws in the US state of Georgia, instead of being laid to rest, the woman was hooked up to a life-support machine and artificially kept alive so that her foetus could grow.
Her confused five-year-old son still visits her body in the hospital, along with other members of her family, who say she is being kept alive against their wishes.
Adriana's mum, April Newkirk, told local news that her grandson thinks his mother is ' sleeping '. "It's torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," she added.
In the meantime, the family are facing mounting medical bills as Adriana is kept on life support by doctors who have told switching off the machines is a 'legal grey area'.
"Every day that goes by, it's more cost, more trauma, more questions," said April. "She's pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born.
"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."
Since the Supreme Court's 2022 reversal of Roe vs Wade - which allowed women in the States to access abortions since 1973 - Georgia's Republican lawmakers have brought in some of the harshest legislation against abortion healthcare.
State law now bans abortion after cardiac activity can be detected - the so-called 'heartbeat bill' - which is around six weeks into pregnancy. But there is an exception under the law if abortion is necessary to maintain the life of the woman.
In a statement, Emory Healthcare claimed 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," the hospital added, "continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve."
Adriana's plight has sparked a wave of outrage from women. Dr Jennifer Lincoln, an OBGYN based in Portland, Oregon, summed it up in a TikTok that has already been watched more than four million times.
"So they're keeping a pregnant woman alive in Georgia who is brain-dead, because she's 20 weeks pregnant, and they've said they cannot take her off life-support because that would be an abortion," said Dr Jennifer.
"And it would be one thing if that's what she said her wish was, or her family's wish even, but it's against her family's wishes.
"Let me say that again: they are keeping a pregnant woman who is dead, alive, for her foetus. So she is literally just an incubator now. While her older son watches her and thinks that she is just 'sleeping'. And if that doesn't make you throw up, then you, my friend, are the one who is dead inside," she added.
"When will you stand up and speak out against these abortion bans? When it affects you? It's so sick. So sick."
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