Georgia Hospital says it follows the state law in the continuation of women to support life

A pregnant woman in Georgia announced that she is fatal in the brain after a medical emergency who was to support life for three months to allow the fetus to grow enough to deliver her, her family says that the hospital told her that she is required under the Acts of Strict Unification in the state.

Adriana Smith family says Emori University Hospital 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.

As the entitlement date continues for more than three months, it can be one of the longest pregnancy. Her family feels uncomfortable that the Georgia Law, which restricts abortion as soon as the heart activity is discovered, does not allow relatives to have an opinion on whether a pregnant woman remains to support life.

The law was adopted in 2019, but it was not implemented until Roe V was canceled. Wade in the Dobbs V case. Jackson Women’s Organization by the Supreme Court, which opened the door to prohibiting government abortion.

Her mother stated in April, that Smith, a 30 -year -old mother and nurse, died in the brain in February.

New Kyker said that Smith is now pregnant in 21 weeks. The fetus is likely to kill breathing tubes and other life -saving devices.

Emory Healthcare said she could not comment on an individual issue due to privacy rules, but issued a statement saying, “Using the consensus of clinical experts, medical literature and legal directives to support our services providers because they provide individual treatment recommendations in accordance with the abortion laws in Georgia and all our laws in force.

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.

Legal confusion over the rights of the fetus

Newkerck said that her daughter has been suffering from severe headaches for more than three months and went to Northwaid Hospital in Atlanta, where she received the medicine and released. 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.

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 it may be blind, he may not be able to walk, he may not remain alive as soon as he was born,” said Newkerck.

She did not say if the family wanted to remove Smith from the support of life.

Monica Simpson, Executive Director of Sistersong, the main prosecutor in a lawsuit challenging the 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.

“Before revenge, the fetus had no rights,” Shabred said. “The state’s interest in the life of the fetus cannot be very strong to overcome other important rights, but now we do not know.”

Repeated complications in well -known cases

Brain death in pregnancy is rare. It is still rare in cases where doctors aim to prolong pregnancy after the advertisement of a woman who died in the brain.

A review of the year 2021 wounded medical literature, which has returned to 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 Dr. Vinkinso Bergilla, who co -authored the study, also warned that the Georgia case was more difficult because the pregnancy was much less when the woman who was fatal was declared in 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 keep the mother outside the infection, out of heart failure,” said Bergilla, Director of Mother Fetal Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Bergilla also found a case from Germany that resulted in a live birth when the woman who died in the brain was declared in nine weeks of pregnancy-as long as Smith was when she died.

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,” Citzler said. “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.”

Sitzer said he believed it is sometimes acceptable to remove life support from a fatal person in the brain, but the law is “an appropriate examination” because the mother is pregnant. He said that Smith’s relatives have “good options”, including maintaining or offering the child.

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. Aber Thurman and Candi Miller’s presidential race, where Democrat Kamala Harris said that the deaths were the result of a ban on abortion that came into effect in Georgia and other places after Dobbs.