Adriana Smith, who was declared brain dead in February when she was nine weeks pregnant and kept on life support due to Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, had her baby delivered via emergency cesarean section on Friday. The state now plans to take her off life support this week. Smith’s heartbreaking story made international headlines, sparked national outrage, and inspired one particularly horrendous column from The Atlantic.
Smith’s mother, April Newkirk—who previously said the family wasn’t given a choice in whether or not to keep Smith on life support—told WXIA of Atlanta that the baby, named Chance, was born June 13, weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces. In May, Newkirk said the hospital had been planning to deliver via C-section in August.
“He’s expected to be OK,” she told the station. “He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying for him.” Chance is currently in the neonatal intensive care unit.
In February, Smith went to the emergency room complaining of severe headaches, but the hospital released her with some meds and without conducting any scans or tests. The next night, Smith’s boyfriend woke up to find her gasping for air. She was rushed back to the ER, where a CT scan revealed multiple blood clots—hours later, she was declared brain dead and placed on a ventilator.
“We didn’t have a choice or a say about it,” Newkirk told 11Alive at the time. “We want the baby. That’s a part of my daughter. But the decision should have been left to us—not the state.”
Georgia’s six-week abortion, one of the strictest in the country, has few exceptions. In May, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) said the state’s abortion ban doesn’t require a hospital to keep a brain-dead person alive just because they’re pregnant—but that’s all he did. Just a half-assed statement and no further action. Jezebel’s former staff writer, Kylie Cheung, wrote at the time:
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.
Apart from Carr, the majority of Georgia’s anti-abortion Republicans were pretty quiet—except for one. Sen. Ed Setzler (R), who sponsored the six-week ban, basically threw a party over the government choosing to keep a brain-dead woman alive as a human incubator.
“I think it is completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child,” he told the Associated Press. “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.”
One day before Newkirk shared that Chance had been born, The Atlantic published an egregious story by Elizabeth Breunig, who not only missed the fundamental point of the entire issue, but also used a bunch of words to essentially say: This is kind of about an abortion ban, but if there wasn’t an abortion ban in Georgia, then this wouldn’t be about an abortion ban. Fucking no shit.
I just—I have no idea how anyone can argue anything other than the fact that a government chose to keep this brain-dead woman on life support so that a fetus could develop. We’re living in a lot of different dystopian hells right now, but this is some truly Margaret Atwood shit.
I wish nothing but the best for this family as they mourn their daughter—who died due to medical negligence —and hopefully get to eventually bring home a healthy baby. “I’m not saying that we would have chose to terminate her pregnancy,” Newkirk recently told 11Alive. “What I’m saying is, we should have had a choice.”
