The family of a 30-year-old mother and nurse in Atlanta is being forced to keep her alive even though she has been declared brain-dead for more than 90 days. She was nine weeks pregnant at the time, and the state of Georgia has a strict ban on abortion after six weeks.
In early February, Adriana Smith, a registered nurse at Emory University Hospital, started experiencing excruciating headaches. While roughly nine weeks pregnant, she visited a local hospital because she knew “enough to know something was wrong.”
However, her mother, April Newkirk, told 11 Alive News the hospital just gave her some medication and sent her home without running any extended tests, like a CT scan.
“If they had done that or kept her overnight, they would have caught it. It could have been prevented,” Newkirk said.
The next morning, Smith’s boyfriend found her gasping for air in her sleep. He called 911, and Smith was taken to Emory Decatur Hospital before being transferred to Emory University Hospital, where she worked. Results from a CT scan came back revealing multiple blood clots in her brain. Doctors were preparing to operate on Smith when they came to the conclusion it was too late, and she was declared brain dead.
In the weeks since that fateful day, Smith has been kept alive through life support, on breathing machines for over 90 days, because of the state’s ban on abortion. Doctors are hoping to keep her alive until around 32 weeks of gestation when they think the fetus will be viable outside of the womb. Smith is currently at 21 weeks.
“It’s torture for me,” Newkirk told the outlet. “I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there.”
The grandmother added how it’s been especially heartbreaking seeing her grandson, Smith’s young son, believe his mother is “just sleeping.”
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, later that same year, Georgia enacted a ban on abortion after detection of a fetal heartbeat, which is typically around six weeks. Since it was passed, at least two of the first deaths linked to the ban have been Black women: Amber Thurman, who died after medical intervention in a legal abortion was delayed, and Candi Miller, who died after she was afraid to seek care because of the ban.
There are exceptions to the law in the case of rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger. However, Smith’s particular case lands in the law’s gray area, and so her family is legally required to keep her on life support until the fetus is viable.
According to Newkirk, the family was informed there was fluid on the fetus’s brain and that there was a possibility the baby may not be able to see, walk, or even survive once born.
“This decision should’ve been left to us. Now we’re left wondering what kind of life [the baby will] have—and we’re going to be the ones raising him,” she said.
In addition to the emotional toll, Newkirk said the family is also becoming increasingly concerned about the cost associated with Smith’s care. The young mother still has weeks ahead of intensive ongoing medical care.
“They’re hoping to get the baby to at least 32 weeks,” Newkirk said. “But every day that goes by, it’s more cost, more trauma, more questions.”
