A brain-dead Georgia woman who was kept on life support to continue her pregnancy had her baby late last week, according to the woman’s mother.
The Georgia woman, Adriana Smith, gave birth prematurely via emergency cesarean section on 13 June, Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, told the local news station 11Alive, which first reported Smith’s story. The baby, named Chance, is in the neonatal intensive care unit and weighs 1lb 13oz, 11Alive reported late on Monday night.
“He’s expected to be OK,” Newkirk said. “He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying for him. He’s here now.”
Smith is set to be taken off of life support on Tuesday, Newkirk added.
Smith went to a hospital in February with what she thought was an intense headache, Newkirk told 11Alive earlier this year. The hospital discharged Smith after providing her with medication, but she was rushed back to the hospital the following day after she woke up gasping for air. Diagnosed with blood clots in her brain, Smith was declared brain dead within hours.
Smith’s case sparked nationwide outrage after her family said doctors informed them that Georgia’s six-week abortion ban required Smith be kept on life support to preserve her pregnancy. Georgia’s ban contains provisions that strengthen the concept of “fetal personhood”, a legal doctrine that holds that embryos and fetuses should be entitled to full legal rights and protections. Reproductive justice advocates have long warned that this doctrine can lead the rights of the fetus to be prioritized above those of the person carrying it.
“We didn’t have a choice or a say about it,” Newkirk said before Chance’s birth. “We want the baby. That’s a part of my daughter. But the decision should have been left to us – not the state.”
Newkirk said that doctors had informed her they had no choice but to keep Smith on life support, but the hospital has declined to comment on Smith’s case, citing privacy rules. In a statement to the Associated Press, the hospital said it “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. Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve.”
However, the office of Georgia’s attorney general, Chris Carr, released a statement saying that Georgia’s ban does not require medical professionals to keep women alive on life support after being declared brain dead.
“Removing life support is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy,” Carr’s spokesperson, Kara Murray, said in the statement.
Newkirk told 11Alive that, if she could speak to Smith again, she would tell her she was a good daughter.
“I’m her mother,” Newkirk said. “I shouldn’t be burying my daughter. My daughter should be burying me.”
