Adriana Smith was nine weeks pregnant before she suffered excruciating headaches. She was admitted to Northside Hospital, received medication and didn’t undergo any tests. As a result, Adriana was sent home. The next morning, her boyfriend says she was struggling to breathe in her sleep. After being admitted into Emory University Hospital, she underwent a CT scan and it was determined she suffered from blood clots. Eventually, Smith was declared brain dead, meaning she is no longer living. Smith is being kept alive via ventilator at Emory University Midtown Hospital.
Emory Healthcare is forced to keep Smith alive, via machines, because she her pregnancy is no longer at risk. Georgia law states the mother must be kept alive until the fetus reaches viability or can be delivered, according to Georgia’s Heartbeat Ban. Her pregnancy passed the six-week barrier, and as such, the fetus must be delivered at the 32-week mark.
The family told NBC affiliate 11Alive, ‘doctors are not legally allowed to consider other options’ with respect to Smith’s welfare. Smith currently is on life support at Emory University Hospital Midtown.
This is not a new refrain in Georgia. Two Black women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, were casualties. Thurman passed away due to septic shock in 2022. Specifically, doctors apparently declined to perform a common dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure to remove fetal tissue from her uterus. Meanwhile, Miller was afraid to seek care due to Georgia’s abortion ban because of her unexpected pregnancy. An autopsy found unexpelled fetal tissue, confirming that the abortion had not fully completed. It also found a lethal combination of painkillers.
Republicans champion the idea of “fetal personhood”
Georgia’s Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, was written in 2019 and it bans most abortions the moment “a detectable human heartbeat” is present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in cells within an embryo that will become the heart. That process could take place as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many pregnancies are detected.
That bill was passed in 2019 by slim margins. In 2022, Georgia’s abortion ban became state law after the United States Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The law was re-affirmed in 2023 by the Georgia Supreme Court.
Georgia’s six-week abortion ban also established fetal personhood. Fetal personhood is the idea that embryos and fetuses are people and have legal rights. As a result, Georgia residents can claim a fetus as a dependent on their state taxes.
Georgia Republicans celebrated the passage because they felt it protected the sanctity of life. Doctors can be charged with felony under Georgia’s abortion ban with few exceptions, specifically when the mother’s life is under threat.
“I think our law is clear,” Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns said in January. “I think there should be some understanding from physicians, they’re very intelligent folks, on how the Heartbeat Bill works.”
Georgia State Sen. Ed Setzler, a Republican who sponsored the 2019 law, supports Emory’s interpretation.
“I think it is completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child,” Setzler said. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life.”
Georgia Democrats Demand Answers for Adriana Smith
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr essentially says Smith’s ordeal is unnecessary.
“There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death,” Carr’s office responded in a statement. “Removing life support is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.”
Carr’s statement, however, does not address the ambiguity felt by Emory and doctors around the state. Doctors can be prosecuted if they run afoul of the law and potentially lose their licenses. Georgia State Senator Nabilah Islam Parkes, a Democrat from Lawrenceville, is demanding answers.
Let me be plain: this is a grotesque distortion of medical ethics and human decency. That any law in Georgia could be interpreted to require a brain-dead woman’s body to be artificially maintained as a fetal incubator is not only medically unsound — it is inhumane.
Yet, because she was pregnant, Emory Healthcare has informed her family that it must keep her body functioning until the fetus reaches viability or can be delivered. What is more, the family is likely to be financially responsible, potentially to the tune of millions, for these “health services” that are being provided without their consent.
State Rep. Kim Schofield, a Democrat from Atlanta, issued a statement excoriating Georgia’s abortion ban.
“This is not healthcare. This is sanctioned cruelty. Adriana’s family is being forced to endure months of emotional torture. Our state has turned a woman into an incubator against her will and stripped her family of the right to say goodbye. This is barbaric, and it must end. Smith’s case has gained national attention as a grim example of how Georgia’s abortion ban is weaponized to override medical judgment, silence families and disproportionately harm Black women. Healthcare providers have cited fear of criminal penalties as a reason for inaction, despite clear signs that humane, patient-centered care is being blocked.”
Adriana Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for mounting medical bills. Currently, $125,545 has been raised, nearly halfway to their $275,000 goal.
In the meantime, Smith’s due date is at least three months away.
