Atlanta (AP)-a pregnant woman in Georgia, who was declared for life support for three months after a medical emergency to let the fetus grow enough to deliver, a movement of her family said that a hospital was told that a hospital was necessary according to the strict law against the abortion law of the state.
With its due date even more than three months away, it could be one of the longest of such pregnancies. Her family is angry that the law of Georgia, which restricts abortion as soon as heart activity is determined, does not allow relatives to have a word about whether a pregnant woman is kept on life support.
Georgia's so -called “heartbeat law” is one of the restrictive abortion statutes that were carried out in many conservative countries since the Roe Supreme Court lifted against Wade three years ago.
The Georgia State Capitol can be seen by Liberty Plaza in the city center of Atlanta on April 6, 2020 (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal Constitution via AP, File)
The Georgia State Capitol can be seen by Liberty Plaza in the city center of Atlanta on April 6, 2020 (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal Constitution via AP, File)
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Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, was explained for brain dead in February in February what she is legally dead-her mother, April Newkirk, to Atlanta TV Station Wxia.
Newkirk said her daughter had an intensive headache more than three months ago and went in Atlantas Northside Hospital, where she received medication and was released. The next morning her friend woke up for air and called 911. Emory University Hospital decided that she had blood clots in her brain and she was declared brain dead.
Newkirk said Smith was now 21 weeks pregnant. Removing breathing pipes and other life -saving devices would probably kill the fetus.
Northside did not answer a request for a comment on Thursday. Emory Healthcare said that, based on data protection regulations, she could not comment on a single case, but published an explanation in which it is used by “consensus of clinical experts, medical literature and legal guidelines to support our providers, since they are given individual treatment recommendations in line with compliance with Georgia's abortation laws and all other applicable laws and the favorable laws Abortion laws and the security of the patients we issue. “
The Emory University Hospital Midtown can be seen in Atlanta on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
The Emory University Hospital Midtown can be seen in Atlanta on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
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Georgia's abortion ban
According to Smith's family, emory doctors told them that they are not allowed to stop or remove the devices that keep their breathing because the abortion of the state can be demonstrated according to cardiac activity – generally about six weeks after pregnancy.
The law was adopted in 2019, but only after Roe v. Wade in 2022 Dobbs against Jackson Women's Health Organization, which opened the door to the state abortion ban. Twelve states force bans for abortion in all pregnancy stages, and three others have bans like Georgia who start after about six weeks.
Like the others, the ban on Georgia contains an exception if an abortion is necessary to maintain the life of women. These exceptions were the focus of legal and political questionsincluding a major Texas Supreme Court The judgment in the last year in which the ban has noticed that there are considerable pregnancy complications.
Smith's family, including her five -year -old son, still visits her in the hospital.
Newkirk said Wxia that the family said that the fetus had liquid in the brain and that they got their health.
“She is pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, cannot survive if he was born,” said Newkirk. She did not say whether the family wants Smith to be removed from life maintenance.
Who has the right to make these decisions?
Monica Simpson, Managing Director of Sistersong, the senior plaintiff in A Complaint Georgia's abortion law said the situation was problematic.
“Your family deserves the right to make decisions about her medical decisions,” said Simpson in an explanation. “Instead, they have over 90 days of retaumization, expensive medical costs and cruelty, unable to not be able to be able to remedy and move towards healing.”
Thaddeus Pope, bioethicist and lawyer at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, said, while some countries have laws that specifically restrict the removal of a pregnant woman who lives but is unable or brain dead, is not from them.
“Mechanical ventilation or other support of the woman would not be an abortion,” he said. “Continued treatment is not legally necessary.”
Lois Shepherd, a bioethicist and legal professor at the University of Virginia, also said that she does not believe that life support in this case is legally required.
The Emory University Hospital Midtown can be seen in Atlanta on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
The Emory University Hospital Midtown can be seen in Atlanta on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
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But she said whether a state could insist that Smith is still uncertain for life preservation, as Roe's tipping over, which found that Feten did not have people's rights.
“Pre-Dobbs, a fetus had no rights,” said Shepherd. “And the state's interest in fetal life could not be so strong that other important rights are overcome, but now we don't know.”
What is the forecast of the fetus?
The situation reflects A Case in Texas More than a decade ago when a brain -fat woman was kept in life support for about two months because she was pregnant. A judge finally decided that the hospital was dismissed by state law and that life support was eliminated.
Brain death during pregnancy is rare. There are even less common cases in which doctors want to extend pregnancy after a woman has been declared brain dead.
“It is obviously not only ethically, but also medically a very complex situation,” said Dr. Vincenzo Berghella, director of maternal maternal medical medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
A review of 2021 that Berghella co -authorized, which held medical literature back with decades in which doctors declared a brainotic woman and wanted to extend her pregnancy. It found 35.
Of these, 27 led to a live birth, whereby the majority either immediately adopted healthy or with normal follow-up tests. Berghella also warned that the case of Georgia was much more difficult because the pregnancy was less far than the woman was declared dead. In the 35 cases he examined, the doctors were only able to extend the pregnancy on average for seven weeks before the complications could intervene.
“It is difficult to keep the mother out of an infection from heart failure,” he said.
Berghella also found a case from Germany that led to a live birth when the woman was declared dead in nine weeks of pregnancy – about as far as Smith as she died.
A headlight for the abortion law in Georgia
Georgia's law gives a fetus the personality. Those who prefer the personality say, fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses should be seen as people with the same rights as those already born.
The Senator of Georgia State, Ed Settler, a Republican who sponsored the 2019 law, said he supported emory interpretation.
“I think it is completely appropriate that the hospital does everything it can to save the child's life,” said Setezler. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it underlines the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital acts appropriate.”
Setzler said he believes that it was sometimes acceptable to eliminate the life support of someone who is brain dead, but that the law is “an appropriate check” because the mother is pregnant. He said Smith's relatives had “good decisions”, including the child or offer adoption.
Georgia's abortion ban was already in the spotlight.
Last year Prublica reported that two women had died in Georgia after they had not received proper medical treatment for complications by taking abortion pills. The stories of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller joined the presidential breed, with the democrat Kamala Harris said that the deaths were the result of the abortion ban that came into force in Georgia and elsewhere.
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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The journalists from Associated Press, Lisa Baumann, Kate Brumback, Sharon Johnson and Charlotte Kramon, contributed.
