A Georgia woman is being forced to keep her brain-dead but also pregnant daughter alive on machines. The costs, emotionally and financially, are crippling.
It seems the hospital isn't even being clear which of the many applicable Georgia laws restricting women, and their surviving family, from making choices about their body are the ones they fear breaking. There are enough ways Georgia legislators have made this situation awful, it seems they are just stepping back to let the courts decide, while running the bill up.
This is the nightmare April Newkirk is living. Her daughter, Adriana Smith—a Black nurse from metro Atlanta—was declared brain-dead on Feb. 19, 2025, days after she first began complaining of persistent headaches, according to her online fundraising page. Yet Emory University doctors have informed her family that they cannot legally take Smith off life support. On May 13, Smith was transferred from Emory University Hospital to another facility—Emory Midtown—which plans to keep Smith "alive" until the fetus can survive outside the womb, which, in this case, is likely around 32 weeks, according to local TV news station 11Alive. Georgia's strict abortion law prohibits most abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected—typically around six weeks into pregnancy—and grants "personhood" to fertilized embryos.
It's not clear, based on the information available and on statements made by Georgia public officials, that the state's abortion ban applies to Smith's case or whether doctors simply fear it might. The family told local media they believed the abortion ban was to blame.
"Emory Healthcare 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," the hospital said in a statement released to several local and national media outlets. "Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve."
Another potentially relevant law is the pregnancy exclusion in Georgia's advance directive law, which would void a patient's advance directive if they were pregnant with a viable fetus.
ReWire News
Previously:
• Trump confuses Georgia state with eastern European country in latest screw-up
• State of Georgia goes to court to defend voting machines that recorded 243% voter turnouts
• Georgia criminalizes routine security research
• Georgia jail panics for 12 hours over missing killer — only to realize cops left him at courthouse
• Georgia elementary school's new logo looks strikingly similar to Nazi Eagle
