This story was updated on Saturday, May 17th, 2025, at 11:55 a.m.
The case of a pregnant woman in Georgia, which was declared for life support for three months, has complicated questions about the abortion law and the question of whether a fetus is a person.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse and mother, was pregnant on February 19 in two months when she was declared brain for brain, according to an online fundraising page launched by her mother. The doctors said that Georgia's strict anti-abdominal law demands that she stay on life before the fetus has developed enough to be delivered, her mother wrote.
The law, one of a wave of measures that were enacted in conservative states after the Supreme Court of Roe against Wade in 2022, restricts the abortion as soon as cardiac activity is determined and gives a fetus the personal rights.
Smith's mother says that her family left it in a difficult situation without a say, and with her due date, the family is asked whether the baby is born or can even survive. Some activists, many of them, such as Smith like Smith, say that it throws problems with racial equity.
What does the law say?
Emory Healthcare, who heads the hospital, did not explain how the doctors decided to keep Smith in life preservation, except in an explanation that they looked at “Georgia's abortion laws and all other applicable laws”.
The state passed a law in 2019 to prohibit abortion after cardiac activity has been proven about six weeks after pregnancy, which after the rise of Roe v. Wade came into force.
This law does not expressly deal with the situation of Smith, it enables abortion to preserve the life or physical health of the pregnant woman. Three other countries have similar bans that occur in all stages of pregnancy around the six -week brand and an abortion of 12 bars.
David S. Cohen, professor at Thomas R. Kline School of Law in Philadelphia at Drexel University, said that the hospital could be most concerned with part of the law that gives the Feten legal rights as “members of the Species Homo Sapien”.
Cohen said that Emory could therefore consider Smith and the fetus as two patients and that Smith, as soon as Smith was life support, had the legal obligation to keep the fetus alive even after she had died.
“This kind of cases that legal professors have spoken about for a long time when they talk about the personality of the fetus,” he said.
MP Nabilah Islam Parkes, a Democrat from the Atlanta region, said on Friday that she sent a letter to Attorney General Chris Carr and asked for a legal opinion on how Georgia's abortion law was applicable if a pregnant woman is brain fat.
Personality difference within the anti-abbreviation movement
Anti-abbreviation groups are divided whether, according to the Advocacy Group, pregnancy justice in at least 17 states should support the provisions of the personality that are in the books in at least 17 states.
Some argue that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetus should be regarded as people with the same rights as born rights. In this personality concept, the rights are granted to you as part of the 14th change in the US constitution, which says that a state can “none person from life, freedom or property without proper procedure or law; or no person in their jurisdiction refuses the equal protection of the law.”
Some saw the personality as politically impractical, especially after the constitutions of the personality of state constitutions were rejected by the voters in Colorado, Mississippi and North Dakota between 2008 and 2014. Those who have been released were looking for laws and restrictions on abortion that are not in terms of personality, although they were often informed of the concept.
Personality fürmer argue that this lacks a lack of moral clarity. Some personal advocates were discontinued in national anti-abortions. In 2014, the National Committee on Life reduced the relationship with his Georgia law on life after the state wing had complied with legislative templates that limited abortion but allowed exceptions for rape and incest.
Unequal access to the care of black women
The Associated Press could not reach Smith's mother April Newkirk. But Newkirk told Atlanta TV Station Wxia that her daughter went to a hospital where headaches complained and medication was received and released. Then her friend awoke for air and called for air and called 911. Emory University Hospital decided that she had blood clots in her brain and that she was declared dead for brain.
It is not clear what Smith said when she went to the hospital or whether the care that was given was standard for her symptoms. But black women often do not complain seriously that their pain is not taken seriously, and an investigation by Associated Press showed that health results for black women are worse due to the circumstances in connection with racism and unequal access to care.
Monica Simpson, Executive Director of Sistersong, the senior plaintiff in a complaint that questioned the Abortion Act in Georgia, said: “Black women have to trust in our healthcare decisions.”
“Like so many black women, Adriana spoke for herself. She expressed what she felt in her body, and as a health service provider, she knew how she should navigate through the medical system,” said Simpson and noticed that Smith was already too late at the time of the diagnosis of “It was too late”.
It is unclear whether the clot in Smith's brain is related to their pregnancy.
But your situation is undoubtedly alarming for those who are looking for solutions for differences in the maternal mortality rate in black women. According to the centers for the control and prevention of diseases, black women had a mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023. This is more than three times the rate for white women and is higher than the rates for Hispanic and Asian women.
What is Smith's current situation?
While Smith is on a ventilator and probably other livelihood, it means that she is explained dead that it is dead.
Some experts refer to “life conservation” as “maintenance measures”, “organ support” or “somatic support”, which refer to the body that differs from the mind.
Emory has not made it public what is being done to be able to develop Smith's fetus further.
In another case in Florida, the doctors provided the baby of a 31-year-old woman who was declared to be brain roll during pregnancy from 22 weeks, but not explained dead without weeks of continuing surveillance, examination and medical care. The woman's family wanted to keep the fetus, said doctors at the Florida Medical University in a newspaper from 2023.
On their first day of the recording, the doctors administered hormones to increase their blood pressure and put a feeding tube. After being put in an intensive care unit, a obstetric nurse remained continuously on her bed to monitor the heart rate and movements of the fetus.
It was at a ventilator, regularly received steroids and hormones and required several antibiotics to treat pneumonia. Her medical team included several specialties: obstetrics, neonatology, radiology and endocrinology.
The doctors carried out an operation to remove the fetus at 33 weeks when his heart rate fell, and the baby seemed to be in good health at birth.
“We have no great science to lead clinical decision -making in these cases,” said Dr. Kavita Arora, a obstetric and gynecological gynecologist in North Carolina, which brought concerns about the effect of a longer use of ventilators on a fetus. “There are just many cases like this.”
The newspaper 2023 warned that “costs should not be underestimated”.
It is not clear whether Smith, whose mother said she was a nurse at the Emory University Hospital, health insurance. Joann Volk, professor, founder and co-director of the Center for Health Insurance reforms at Georgetown University, said that it is generally due to the insurer for people with health insurance, whether the care is medically necessary and under the plan.
It is unclear how much it will cost to keep Smith in life support until the fetus can be delivered or who will be responsible for these costs, the Gofundme side of her mother mentions Smith's 7-year-old son and notes that the baby could have significant disabilities because it aims to collect $ 275,000.
