A BRAIN-dead mum’s baby has been delivered after her family’s torturous struggle with doctors to switch off her life support.
Adriana Smith, 31, was nine weeks pregnant when doctors discovered she had blood clots in her brain and tragically declared her brain-dead.
But despite her family‘s plea to end her life, doctors said she couldn’t be taken off life-support due to Georgia‘s ban on abortion.
After months of agony, her baby, named Chance, was born prematurely on Friday.
The little boy is being kept in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Adriana’s mum, April Newkirk, told local news: “He’s expected to be OK. He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him.”
The boy’s birth comes amid mounting fears he would be born with severe disabilities because of his mum’s health complications.
Just a couple months ago, April revealed how the foetus had hydrocephalus, otherwise known as fluid on the brain.
She said at the time: “He may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born.
“Right now, the journey is for baby Chance to survive.
“Whatever condition God allows him to come here in, we’re going to love him just the same.”
Tragic discovery
Adriana Smith, 30, was nine weeks pregnant when she went to hospital in Georgia seeking treatment for agonising headaches three months ago.
The young nurse was sent home by doctors with medication who didn’t conduct a CT scan.
Adriana awoke the following day experiencing shortness of breath and making gargling noises, with the hospital eventually discovering blood clots in her brain.
After unsuccessful surgery to relieve the pressure they were causing, Adriana was tragically declared brain-dead.
The nurse has a seven-year-old son who is now without his mum, leaving Adriana’s already-grieving family devastated.
However, the already distressing situation became “an absolute horror show” when Emory University Hospital informed Adriana’s family that even though she was legally dead, she wasn’t allowed to pass away.
This is because the hospital – where Adriana previously worked – say it’s acting “in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws”.
The hospital insisted that Adriana’s body remain on life support with breathing and feeding tubes until medical staff decided the male fetus was developed enough to be delivered via cesarean section.
Health officials in Georgia reportedly believe that removing her from life support would violate the state’s strict anti-abortion laws.
The laws prohibit termination once a foetal heartbeat is detected at roughly six weeks.
Despite Georgia’s contentious law dubbed the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act containing an exception to save the life of the mother, according to the hospital, this didn’t apply to Adriana.
They say this is because her life is beyond saving.
Adriana’s heartbroken family hadn’t made a decision on whether to switch off her life support, but have been left devastated that the choice is no longer theirs.
Adriana’s mum heartbreakingly told 11Alive: “This is torture for me.
“I see my daughter breathing by the ventilator but she’s not there.”
Despite Georgia’s LIFE Act just about getting passed in 2019, it didn’t come into effect until 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.
This is the 1973 case that determined a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Doctors anticipated that there will be even more problems for the growing foetus, with life-support systems not designed for long-term treatment of brain-dead patients.
And with blood no longer running to Adriana’s brain, the organ was already beginning to decompose.
Director of the maternal foetal medicine division at George Washington University at the time said: “The chance of there being a healthy newborn at the end of this is very, very small.”
Contentious law
Legal experts have argued that the ways in which anti-abortion laws have been written have made doctors and hospitals fear potentially facing criminal charges.
They also say lawmakers should have anticipated how the movement to establish what’s been dubbed “foetal personhood” – where a foetus would have legal rights – would end up putting the rights of the mum below those of their unborn child.
Some of Georgia’s conservatives have even argued that the state’s LIFE law has been misinterpreted.
The state’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr said in a statement that the law doesn’t require doctors to keep brain-dead patients alive as turning off life support “is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy”.
But others like state Senator Ed Setzler have said that there’s a “valuable human life” and that “it’s the right thing to save it”.
It is not the first time an American woman has been kept on life support due to a pregnancy.
In 2014, Marlise Munoz became brain-dead due to a pulmonary embolism at 14 weeks pregnant.
Hospital workers had refused to honour Marlise’s previously stated wish to not be kept alive on machines.
The medical staff cited a state law that stopped hospitals from withdrawing or witholding “life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient”.
But Marlise’s husband began a legal battle to get her taken off life support, with a judge ruling in his favour.
Marlise was removed from life support before the foetus was born.
What are the abortion laws in Georgia?
By Annabel Bate
ABORTIONS in Georgia are banned after around six weeks of pregnancy.
They are not allowed after foetal cardiac activity, otherwise known as a heartbeat, is detected.
The Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act prohibits abortions after this point, apart from if there are very limited circumstances like medical emergencies of if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.
Doctors can face 10 years in prison for performing abortions illegally.
When in Georgia who receive an abortion after six weeks won’t face criminal charges or punishments.
