Pregnant brain-dead woman kept on life support in US sparks outcry over abortion law     

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Katie Watson, a professor at Northwestern University specializing in medical ethics and reproductive rights, said the abortion law does not apply to a case like Smith’s. — File pic via TODAY

GEORGIA, May 17 — A 30-year-old pregnant woman in the southeastern US state of Georgia has been kept on life support for three months—despite being declared brain-dead—due to the state’s abortion restrictions, the woman’s mother says.

April Newkirk said the decision to keep her daughter Adriana Smith alive was made without input from her family.

“This decision should’ve been left to us,” she told local NBC broadcaster WXIA-TV.

Newkirk said Smith, a registered nurse, was suffering serious headaches in February when she was nine weeks pregnant. An initial hospital visit ended with only a prescription for medication.

The next morning, when she was taken to the hospital where she worked, doctors found multiple blood clots in her brain, and she was declared brain dead.

Georgia law bans all abortion treatments after six weeks of pregnancy—one of the so-called ‘heartbeat’ laws, referring to the approximate first detection of a fetal heartbeat.

As Smith was nine weeks along, doctors were hesitant to do anything that could contravene the law, according to Newkirk.

Smith has been kept on life support ever since, and is now 21 weeks into her pregnancy.

“I’m not saying that we would have chosen to terminate her pregnancy, what I’m saying is: we should have had a choice,” Newkirk said.

Smith, who has a son, has been kept on a ventilator to bring the fetus to term, though Newkirk said doctors are not sure the pregnancy will be viable or without health complications.

Chilling effect

Katie Watson, a professor at Northwestern University specializing in medical ethics and reproductive rights, said the abortion law does not apply to a case like Smith’s.

The “Georgia abortion statute is completely unrelated to removing a ventilator from a brain-dead person. It has nothing to say about that, even if that person is pregnant at the time of their death,” Watson told AFP on Friday.

“If the family’s report of what the hospital told them is accurate, the hospital has made a surprising misinterpretation of Georgia’s abortion law,” she added.

Watson said it was possible the hospital’s actions were out of fear of legal liability, “which is a chilling effect of these statutes” against abortion.

Emory Healthcare, the hospital system where Smith is being treated, did not immediately respond to a request for comment by AFP.

The saga provoked a strong reaction by Democrats and abortion rights organizations.

“Everyone deserves the freedom to decide what’s best for their families, futures and lives,” Democratic congresswoman Nikema Williams of Georgia said in a statement.

Williams accused US President Donald Trump and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, both Republicans, of “forcing people through unimaginable pain.”

“It is deadly to be Black and pregnant in a state where reproductive care is limited and criminalized,” said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, an advocacy group focusing on reproductive justice for women of color.

Since the US Supreme Court’s decision to end federal protection of abortion rights in 2022, states like Georgia have adopted tough anti-abortion laws.

Trump, who in his first term appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, has frequently credited himself on contributing to the overturning of Roe v Wade, which had secured the right to terminate a pregnancy. — AFP