Brain-Dead Georgia Woman Being Kept Alive Because She’s Pregnant

The woman's mother said that doctors told the family they were keeping her alive because of the state's six-week abortion ban.

By Nora Biette-Timmons | May 16, 2025 | 4:19pm

Photo: 11Alive via Smith's family Abortion Latest

Brain-Dead Georgia Woman Being Kept Alive Because She’s Pregnant

There have been many horrible consequences of various states’ abortion bans, but what’s happening in Georgia to a pregnant, brain-dead woman is a sickening new level.

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother, has been kept on life support for more than 90 days, after she was declared brain-dead in February, when she was nine weeks pregnant.

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Her mother, April Newkirk, told a local NBC affiliate this week that doctors told the family that because of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, Smith must be kept alive until the fetus can live outside of the womb, probably at 32 weeks. As of this week, Smith’s pregnancy was only 21 weeks along.

“It’s torture for me,” Newkirk said. “I see my daughter breathing by the ventilator but she’s not there.”

Smith, a nurse, had been experiencing intense headaches for months when she went to the hospital in February. She was given medication and then released, but doctors didn’t perform tests or do a CT scan; otherwise, they would’ve noticed and treated the blood clots in her brain, Newkirk said. The next morning, Smith’s boyfriend woke up to Smith gasping for air and called 911. She was taken to a different hospital, where she was declared brain-dead.

Now, she’s being kept alive just to gestate her pregnancy.

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, signed the horrifically named LIFE Act (a so-called fetal heartbeat bill) in 2019, but it wasn’t enforced until Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, meaning the state is directly inflicting pain upon this family. The decision to put Smith on life support (or not) “should have been left up to the family,” Newkirk said. “I’m not saying we would have chose to terminate her pregnancy, what I’m saying is, we should have had a choice.”

It feels almost disrespectful to make the obvious references here, to say this is “dystopian” or “reminiscent of Handmaid’s Tale.” And while both do fit, the perverse reality is that the United States has always been a dangerous place for women, especially Black women. The maternal mortality rate for Black women is more than three times what it is for white women (50 deaths for every 100,000 live births, and 14.5 respectively), and on top of that, post-Roe, nearly half of Black women and girls under 55 live in the 22 states with near-total or total abortion bans.

Newkirk said doctors don’t know what the health of Smith’s child will be like once he is delivered, but have told them he has fluid in his brain. “My grandson may be blind, may not be able to walk. … We don’t know if he’ll live once she has him.”

Smith’s family is also worried about the medical bills they’ll face for doctors artificially prolonging her life. What a twisted cherry on top of this specifically American nightmare.

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