A pregnant woman in Georgia has been declared fatal in the brain after a medical emergency and the doctors have kept supporting life for three months so far to allow enough time for the state and comply with the Georgia’s strict law to combat abortion, says family members.
It can remain in that case for another several months.
The case is the latest result of the abortion ban that has been in some states since the Roe V Supreme Court canceled. Wade three years ago.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, announced a dead brain-which means that she is a legal dead in February, her mother told ATLANTA TV Station Wxia.
Newkerck said that her daughter has been suffering from severe headaches for more than three months and went to Atlanta Northwide HospitalWhere I received the medicine and released it. The next morning, her boyfriend woke up to the shakes of air and called 911. Emory University Hospital decided that she had blood clots in her brain and was announced dead in the brain.
New Kyker said that Smith is now pregnant in 21 weeks. The fetus is likely to kill breathing tubes and other life -saving devices.
Northside did not respond to the comment on Thursday. Emory Healthcare said that she could not comment on an individual issue due to privacy rules, but issued a statement saying that he “uses the consensus of clinical experts, medical literature and legal guidance to support our service providers because they provide individual treatment recommendations in accordance with the laws of abortion in Georgia and all the laws in force.
Banning abortion in Georgia
The Smith family says that Emori’s doctors told them that they are not allowed to stop or remove devices that keep their breathing because the state law prohibits abortion after discovering the heart activity – generally about six weeks of pregnancy.
The law was adopted in 2019, but it was not implemented even after Roe V has been canceled. Wade is the rule of Women’s Health Organization at Dobbs V. Jackson 2022, and opened the door to prohibiting government abortion. Twelve states apply the ban on miscarriage at all stages of pregnancy and three other cases that have a ban such as Georgia, which started after about six weeks.
Like others, Georgia’s ban includes an exception if miscarriage is necessary to maintain a woman’s life. These exceptions were in the heartLegal and political questionsIncluding the pioneerTexas Supreme CourtLast year, which was found that the embargo there applies even when there are great complications of pregnancy.
The Smith family, including its five -year -old son, is still visiting her in the hospital.
Newcia told the doctors to tell the family that the fetus had liquid on the brain and that they are concerned about its health.
“She is pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, he may not be able to walk, he may not survive as soon as he was born,” said Newkerck. She did not say if the family wanted to remove Smith from the support of life.
Who has the right to make these decisions?
Monica Simpson, Executive Director of Sistersong, the main prosecutor in A.The difficult lawsuitThe abortion law in Georgia said the situation is a problem.
“Her family deserves the right to obtain the decision -making authority over its medical decisions,” Simpson said in a statement. “Instead, they were exposed to more than 90 days of extraction, expensive medical costs, the cruelty of the inability to solve it and move towards recovery.”
Louis Shbred, a biological ethics and law professor at the University of Virginia, said she does not believe that life support is required in this case.
But she said that whether the state can insist that Smith remain unconfirmed since the extinction of Ru, which found that embryos do not have the rights of people.
“The fetus had no rights,” Shabred said. “The state’s interest in the life of the fetus cannot be strong to overcome other important rights, but now we do not know.”
What is the diagnosis of the fetus?
The situation is repeatedA case in TexasMore than a decade ago when a fatal woman in the brain remained to support life for about two months because she was pregnant. A judge eventually spent that the hospital was misunderstood the state law, and life support was removed.
Brain death in pregnancy is rare. I am still rarely the cases where doctors aim to prolong the pregnancy after the advertisement of the woman died by the brain.
“It is a very complicated situation, clearly, not only morally but also medically,” said Dr. Vincento Bergilla, Director of Mother Fetal Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
The year 2021 reviewed Bergilla in the composition of medical literature, which prepared decades for cases in which doctors declared a deadly woman in the brain and aimed at prolonging her pregnancy. I found 35.
Among them, 27 led to a live birth, and the majority announced either immediately healthy or with natural follow -up tests. But Berghella also warned that the Georgia case was more difficult because pregnancy was much lower when a woman declared the brain. In the 35 cases he studied, doctors were able to prolong the period of pregnancy at a rate of only seven weeks before complications forced them to intervene.
“It is only difficult to remove the mother from infection, out of heart failure,” he said.
Bergilla also found a case from Germany that resulted in a live birth when the woman announced the death of the brain in nine weeks of pregnancy – along the extent that Smith was when she died.
Shedding light on the abortion law in Georgia
The Georgia Law gives the personality to the fetus. Those who prefer the character say that fertilized eggs, fetuses and fetuses should be considered people with the same rights as already born.
The Senator in the state of Georgia Ed Sitzer, a Republican who sponsored the 2019 law, said it supported Emori’s interpretation.
“I think it is quite appropriate for the hospital to do what he can to save the child’s life,” said Sitzler. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of a person’s innocent life. I think the hospital is acting appropriately.”
Siter said he believed it is sometimes acceptable to remove life support from a dead person in the brain, but the law is a “appropriate examination” because the mother is pregnant. He said that Smith’s relatives have “good options”, including keeping the child or offering adoption.
The prohibition of miscarriage in Georgia was in the spotlight before.
Last year, PROPUBLICA reported that two women from Georgia died after they had not obtained the appropriate medical treatment for complications from taking miscarriages. Amber Thurman and Candi Miller’s stories entered the presidential race, where Democrat Kamala Harris said that the deaths were the result of the abortion ban that entered into force in Georgia and other places after Dobbs.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AP25135637670423.jpg?resize=1200,600
Source link