'No Family Should Have to Endure This': Georgia Doctors Keep Brain-Dead Woman Alive Under Abortion Ban

Eight months after Georgia's abortion ban was reported to be the first post-Dobbs law under which a woman died because she was unable to get standard reproductive care, the state's so-called "heartbeat law" is back in the news as a family is being forced to keep a pregnant woman on life support to ensure her fetus can be delivered—even though she is legally dead.

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse, was declared brain-dead in February when she was nine weeks pregnant, after she had suffered intense headaches and woke up gasping for air one night. Doctors at Northside Hospital in Atlanta found that she had blood clots in her brain.

She has been hooked up to breathing tubes and other life support devices, and doctors say they can't remove the machines for another three months, when they plan to deliver the fetus with which she is now 21 weeks pregnant.

Smith's mother, April Newkirk, has described the experience of watching her daughter remain alive despite her brain death "torture."

"I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," she told local news affiliate WXIA.

Smith's five-year-old son is among the family members who continue to visit her in the hospital as they wait for her to reach 32 weeks of pregnancy.

"No family should have to endure this horror," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

"Her family deserved the right to have decision-making power about her medical decisions," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, which has filed a lawsuit challenging Georgia's abortion ban, in a statement. "Instead, they have endured over 90 days of retraumatization, expensive medical costs, and the cruelty of being unable to resolve and move toward healing."

The family is angry that Georgia's law, which bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, when fetal cardiac activity—not a heartbeat—can be detected, does not include a provision allowing families a say in whether a pregnant person is kept on life support after being permanently incapacitated.

Doctors have told the family that the fetus may also suffer health problems due to fluid that's been detected on the brain.

"She's pregnant with my grandson," Newkirk told WXIA. "But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born."

Smith's fate after she became brain-dead "should have been left up to the family," Newkirk added.

Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid said laws like the ban that went into effect in Georgia after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade show that the Republican Party doesn't "see women as human beings, but as incubators."

"Georgia bans organ donation of those who died without their consent—but Georgia's six-week abortion ban is now forcing a brain-dead woman to stay alive without her consent because she was nine weeks pregnant at time of brain death," said Rashid. "A corpse in Georgia has more rights over its body than do women. Horrific cruelty."

State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-7) said that "Adriana and her family deserve better."

"Even in death, Georgia Republicans have denied women bodily autonomy," she said. "This is cruel and inhumane."