Hospital Still Planning to Deliver Fetus of Brain-Dead Georgia Woman

Meanwhile, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) says nothing in the state’s abortion ban requires hospitals to keep a brain-dead person alive just because they’re pregnant. “Removing life support is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy,” Carr’s spokesperson, Kara Murray, said in a statement last week. This appears to be a classic case of hospitals interpreting state abortion laws over-broadly to protect themselves from any legal liability. We often see this in cases when pregnant people experiencing severe, potentially life-threatening pregnancy complications are denied emergency abortions because hospitals fear legal penalties for violating abortion bans, which offer only nebulous exceptions.

The majority of Georgia Republicans have been pretty quiet, but at least one anti-abortion lawmaker said they believe the hospital is adhering to what’s required under the state’s ban: “It is completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child,” state Sen. Ed Setzler (R), who sponsored the six-week ban, told the Associated Press on Friday. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital is acting appropriately.” Students for Life of America, one of the most influential anti-abortion organizations in the nation, shares this view: “While Adriana can no longer speak for herself, her son’s life still matters. Her doctors are doing the right thing by treating him as a unique patient.”

Nevertheless, Emory says it can’t comment on the specifics of Smith’s case—only that the hospital “uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.”

Steven Ralston, the director of the maternal fetal medicine division at George Washington University, told the Washington Post last week that “the chances of there being a healthy newborn at the end of this is very, very small.” The fetus, who Smith’s family says they’ve named Chance, “may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born,” Ralston added.

“Right now, the journey is for baby Chance to survive,” Newkirk said this week. “Whatever condition God allows him to come here in, we’re going to love him just the same.”

She continued, “He has his toes, arms, limbs—everything is forming. We’re just hoping he makes it.”

For all the outrage Smith’s case has rightfully drawn, it’s less of an outlier than you might think: In many ways, we’re still facing the tip of the iceberg of the absurd legal and ethical quandaries created by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health three years ago. Smith’s case is an example of the supposedly unintended consequences of fetal personhood, a strain of the anti-abortion movement that calls for fetuses and embryos to be legally recognized as people. Fetal personhood is reinforced by abortion bans, and long before Dobbs, this notion created a range of shocking, dehumanizing situations by rendering pregnant people’s citizenship secondary to that of a fetus (in some cases, even the mere idea of a fetus). 

This legislative session alone, 12 state legislatures have introduced bills to classify having an abortion as homicide. In 2024, IVF clinics across Alabama had to suspend their services following a court ruling recognizing frozen embryos as “extrauterine children.” Many states prohibit the finalization of a divorce while someone is pregnant, without exceptions for abuse. Pregnant people can potentially face kidnapping charges if they engage in interstate travel without their potentially abusive partner’s consent, legal experts have previously warned Jezebel. And, at the same time, states and Congress have repeatedly proposed child tax credits and carpool lane privileges for fetuses in an insidious and seemingly benevolent ploy to institutionalize fetal personhood. 

All of these absurd scenarios contribute to a political environment in which women—especially Black women like Smith—are further dehumanized and denied fundamental bodily agency, as we’re now seeing with Smith and her family.