Adriana Smith: Brain dead woman gives birth after being kept alive under Georgia’s strict abortion laws

A brain dead woman has given birth to a baby boy — four months after being put on life support.

In a case that has grabbed international headlines, Georgia woman Adriana Smith’s family was told by doctors they were not allowed to turn off her life support and she would be kept alive until she could deliver her baby due to that State’s strict abortion laws.

Baby Chance was born prematurely by caesarean section on June 13, about six months into the pregnancy.

Adriana Smith, an Atlanta nurse who also has a seven-year-old son, has been on life support since February 19, when she was eight weeks pregnant, after suffering a medical emergency linked to blood clots in her brain.

She had been complaining of headaches and visited two hospitals for help but no tests were conducted, according to her mother April Newkirk, before she was found unresponsive and placed on life support.

Georgia law bans abortion after cardiac activity of a foetus is detected, which is at about six weeks.

While the law does not specifically address what should happen if a pregnant mother is declared brain dead, at six weeks the foetus is given “personhood” rights, making Ms Smith’s case complex.

Doctors told Ms Smith’s grieving family they were legally required under a bill known as the LIFE Act to keep her alive until the foetus was developed enough to be delivered.

But Georgia Attorney General’s Office in May clarified that the LIFE Act did not require doctors to keep a woman on life support after brain death.

“Removing life support is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy,” spokesperson Kara Murray said.

Emory Healthcare, which runs the hospital, has said only that it decided to keep Ms Smith on life support after considering “Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws”.

As the legal and ethical implications of the case were debated, Ms Smith’s mother expressed concern that the baby could be born with disabilities or may not even be able to survive.

“Adriana was only 2 months when placed on support and were given no choice to wait for months to find out the baby will suffer disease which will lead to major disabilities,” Ms Newkirk wrote in May in support of a GoFundMe campaign.

This week Ms Newkirk told Atlanta TV station WXIA that baby Chance had been born, weighing 500 grams, and was now being cared for in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care.

“He’s expected to be OK,” Ms Newkirk said.

“He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying for him. He’s here now.”

She is now preparing to turn off her daughter’s life support.

“It’s kind of hard, you know. It’s hard to process, she said.

“I’m her mother, I shouldn’t be burying my daughter. My daughter should be burying me.”