Adriana Smith lay in an Atlanta hospital bed on life support for more than three months after suffering multiple blood clots in her brain, rendering her brain dead. She is also pregnant, with several more weeks to go. Her grieving family members say she’s being kept alive only to give birth, and claim they’ve been stripped of their legal right to make decisions about her care due to Georgia’s strict abortion laws.
In all 50 states, when a person is declared brain dead by medical professionals, it means they are legally dead, and loved ones may seek a court order to remove the patient from life support if there’s no DNR (“do not resuscitate”) order in place. But not in this case.
Georgia’s 2019 Heartbeat Law, known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, makes it a crime to intervene in a pregnancy after about six weeks or until a heartbeat is detected. There are a few exceptions to the ban, however — rape, incest, and notably when the mother’s life is at risk.
Apparently, Smith’s vegetative state does not qualify. Her unusual situation presents a legal gray area, making the months that have passed “torture” for her and her family.
“She’s been breathing through machines for more than 90 days,” her mother, April Newkirk, told local news outlet 11Alive. “It’s torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there. And her son — I bring him to see her.”
Newkirk said the family might not have chosen to end the pregnancy but they feel the decision was theirs to make. The fetus has an undetermined amount of fluid on its brain, and concerns about the unborn child’s health weigh on Smith’s loved ones. “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 outlet.
“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,” she added. The potential costs of ongoing medical care for her grandson add another layer of worry.
Doctors want to keep Smith alive via intensive life-sustaining treatments until the baby can survive outside the womb, which doctors estimate will be another 11 weeks. Right now, Smith is 21 weeks pregnant.
“They’re hoping to get the baby to at least 32 weeks,” Newkirk said. “But every day that goes by, it’s more cost, more trauma, more questions.”
In early February, Smith, who is a registered nurse at Emory University Hospital, was nearing her ninth week of pregnancy when she experienced intense headaches. She checked into Northside Hospital in Atlanta but was released without having any tests or a CT scan, her mother told reporters. “They gave her some medication,” she said, but it took two hospital transfers before a CT scan was finally done, revealing the deadly blood clots.
“If they had done that or kept her overnight, they would have caught it. It could have been prevented,” lamented her mother. The morning after Smith was first released, she awoke at home struggling to breathe, and her panicked boyfriend, hearing gurgling sounds, called 911. This time, she was taken to Emory Decatur and then moved again to her workplace, Emory University Hospital, where they ran a CT scan and discovered the clots in her brain. “They asked me if I would agree to a procedure to relieve the pressure, and I said yes,” Newkirk said. “Then they called me back and said they couldn’t do it.” It was too late.
Recently, on May 13, Smith was transferred yet another time to a fourth hospital, Emory Midtown, because they have better obstetric care, the doctors told Newkirk. Throughout the ordeal and multiple hospitals, her family has visited her every day, including her young son, who believes his mother is just sleeping.
“I think every woman should have the right to make their own decision,” Newkirk said. “And if not, then their partner or their parents.”
