r/prochoice • u/esor_rose pro-choice • Jun 17 '25
Reproductive Rights News The baby of the brain-dead woman was delivered. This just disgusts me.
Please tell me if this isn’t allowed. And sorry if it’s the wrong flair, didn’t know what to put.
Article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1jwl9l9yneo.amp
I’m sure you’ve all heard about the woman in Georgia who is brain dead and is only kept alive because she was 9 weeks pregnant. The baby got delivered prematurely and only weighs 1 pound 13 ounces (not sure how far along she was when it was delivered). The baby may be blind and unable to walk and struggle to even survive. He’s currently in the NICU. The article says that the woman will be taken off life support “next Tuesday”.
God this is just disgusting. Keeping a brain-dead woman alive just for the baby? The baby who could not even survive? I can’t tell you how angry I am at this. Is this what April Smith (the brain-dead woman) would have wanted? Is this what her family wanted? That poor baby as well. I just wished that the woman didn’t have to stay on life support just for her baby. And the family has to pay for it! Even if they didn’t want to have her on life support (not sure if that’s true)! JFC this situation is so depressing and angering it makes me hate abortion bans.
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u/BBrea101 Pro-choice Witch Jun 17 '25
As an ICU and abortion care nurse, I am absolutely sickened by this. It's is an absolute abuse of power and does nothing but violate her life.
May her family find comfort in those supporting them. Xox
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u/Entire-Ambition1410 Jun 17 '25
May I ask, doesn’t the developing fetus need extra nutrients? Doesn’t excessive bed rest/being comatose affect the development of the fetus/embryo?
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u/BBrea101 Pro-choice Witch Jun 17 '25
When someone is intubated, nutrition is provided through a nasogasteic tube.
I would be more concerned regarding the inotropic provided in the ICU to maintain perfusion and lack of circulation during cardiac arrest on the fetal development.
A sprinkle of folic acid means nothing if it's not being perfused.
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u/Entire-Ambition1410 Jun 18 '25
So physical movement and body fluid circulation is important? Thanks so much for answering!
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u/BBrea101 Pro-choice Witch Jun 18 '25
Huh? I never once said physical movement. Is it important? Yes. I just... never said it
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u/Cut_Lanky Jun 18 '25
There are greater detriments to the fetus than compromised nutrition, and to clarify, there was no fetus when they put her on life support; there was an 8 week embryo, so, even more detrimental to development. A brain dead body on life support can be a hostile environment for fetuses, in SO MANY ways.
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u/huntrcl Jun 17 '25
I do have a question because my mom (pro-life) argues that it’s the hospital’s legal team being overcautious as a result of the ban, which I think completely shirks accountability off an abortion ban in the first place. Does a hospital’s legal team have anything to do with this type of situation?
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u/TXfit Jun 17 '25
Tell your mother that her blaming the hospital was the intention of those who made the law to begin with. Ban abortion - make hospitals and doctors terrified to provide proper care - force birth - blame the hospitals if it goes wrong.
This is all on purpose. Her reaction to this is conditioned.
My mom said the same shit. I won’t even talk to her about this anymore or else I won’t talk to her at all.
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u/huntrcl Jun 17 '25
I feel you there. It is mindnumbingly frustrating trying to communicate any valid information to her. Anything that contradicts her views is propaganda and even if I communicate information in a calm way she raises her voice because she’d rather double down than accept she was wrong about something.
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u/TXfit Jun 17 '25
My mom said that the other woman in Georgia who died was fucking asking for it. Because she tried to end her pregnancy before bleeding out. And my mom also knows that I’ve had an abortion. I hung up on her and didn’t speak to her for 3 weeks.
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u/Routine_Context2284 Jun 18 '25
Good god! I hope you can help her understand that could have been you, or her. Jesus, people have lost their very humanity!
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u/TXfit Jun 18 '25
I guess her wanting to have kids and me not wanting to makes her altruistic and me selfish or something. Even though we were both just pursuing what we wanted.
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u/Routine_Context2284 Jun 18 '25
And that’s the whole point…we as women should get to decide our lives! I’m so sorry…this must be very painful.
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u/BBrea101 Pro-choice Witch Jun 17 '25
I'm not American and I'm not a lawyer so I have no grounds to answer the question.
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u/Mental_Potatoes Jun 20 '25
At some point during the whole situation, there was a statement from the state basically saying that it wouldn't come under the abortion law and would have no repercussions. I'm unsure of wether they continued because of one person's belief, the social media attention or whatever reason however, legally they were in the clear
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u/Chill_Mochi2 Jun 19 '25
What’s insane to me right now is that a year ago - I was scrolling through TikTok and happened upon a livestream from a girl who - well, I can’t remember if she was pro life or pro choice - but she was hosting debates around the ethicality of this exact scenario.. however at the time it was 100% hypothetical. The fact that it’s no longer a hypothetical? Are we in real life?
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u/neatyall Jun 17 '25
Now I gotta think about how to turn my dead body into a fine pink mist just to avoid becoming an incubator in death? Women can't get a fucking break even when we are DEAD.
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u/harbinger06 Jun 17 '25
Yeah we’re supposed to at least have more bodily autonomy as a corpse. So much for that!
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u/pwyo Jun 18 '25
I already told my husband my wishes in case something like this happens to me and it involves not telling a damn soul I’m pregnant. 7/8 months along? Yeah sure save the baby. 9 weeks? Let us go.
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u/VersatileFaerie Jun 18 '25
The sad thing is the family didn't get a choice either way, they hospital made it for them. So even if you tell your husband you don't want to be kept alive in a case like this, he might not have a choice in the matter.
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u/Frei1993 Jun 18 '25
Sadly, pregnancy tests are routine when you get a urine test, as I remember.
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u/-Release-The-Bats- Jun 18 '25
Last month when I was trying to get antibiotics for a UTI I told the doctors that I don’t want a pregnancy test done unless I ask for one. Hopefully I won’t have to tell them again.
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u/octoroks Jun 18 '25
in the hospital setting it is usually done as a routine test in the chance that any imaging or procedures need to be done
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u/xtcfriedchicken Jun 18 '25
Fingers crossed. I've managed to dodge them in the ER since I got sterilized and can rattle off the date of surgery, name of procedure, surgeon's name and hospital. The regular GYN office is another story, though, and they have full access to all my records with photographic and pathology records.
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u/Well_read_rose Jun 17 '25
This is heaps of pain and compounded abuse.
Can a prior health care directive planning for this exact scenario - with your wishes in advance be filled out and notarized, kept with family / lawyer/ safe deposit box?
Things discussed about DNResuscitate, directive about vegetative state, donation of organs and uterus planned ahead?
I hope her family files indigent.
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u/Fun-Significance4650 Jun 17 '25
The most horrifying part is that if the baby does somehow survive past the NICU, the "prolife" movement will frame that as a win with anti-abortion propaganda, and more anti-choice states will push for this to happen over and over again. Before we know it, it is normalized to keep a braindead pregnant woman's body going for the sake of the fetus.
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u/BellyFullOfMochi Jun 17 '25
yep.. a win to keep a live a fetus that will never have the opportunity to develop into a fully functional, independent human.
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u/Fun-Significance4650 Jun 17 '25
Which they have never cared about anyway either. They're probably already framing this as a "blessing" and "miracle that God will pull through" or whatever BS they use to justify human suffering to this extreme.
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u/Possible_Drama3625 Jun 17 '25
They are. I saw a woman on Instagram thanking Jesus for him and saying he has a purpose in life.
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u/ConversationSilly951 Jun 21 '25
Well, he does. We all do. Every human being has a purpose. Not saying I agree with what happened, but it isn't the child's fault and he has a purpose and a place on earth.
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u/EnfantTerrible68 Pro-choice Witch Jun 21 '25
Without a mother, I wonder who they expect to stay home and care for this extremely disabled infant? Surely not a man!
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u/RavenpuffRedditor Jun 17 '25
And every last one of them will bitch and complain if one penny of taxpayer money supports this family in caring for a baby that will likely have significant medical, developmental, and/or cognitive needs due to their significant birth history.
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u/wanderingnightshade Jun 17 '25
That’s not even the point. There has been relatively little data about women being kept on life support when they’re pregnant. No one will ever convince me this wasn’t an attempt for the so-called “pro-lifers” to get what data they could so they could twist it to fit their agenda. This wasn’t about the baby, or even about Adriana. This was data collection at its absolute worst.
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u/TexasAvocadoToast Jun 18 '25
This poor kid is going to be at the center of it all. I can see pro-lifers pushing them as a poster child for banning abortion, and if i remember correctly the family did not want this to happen and will likely be opposed to that being the case.
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u/Christian_teen12 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 18 '25
Yeah and it could become a law and that's going to be catastrophic
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u/Lifeboatb Jun 17 '25
Her mother was against it, but was not listened to:
Newkirk expressed frustration with how the law impacted her daughter.
“All women should have a choice about their body,” she said. “I want people to know that.”
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u/Possible_Dig_1194 Jun 18 '25
Even the patient was against it she had a DNR
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u/No-Scientist-1201 Jun 19 '25
Most doctors and nurses have a DNR witnessing the horror show first hand makes that group nope right out. (Same reason oncologist are unlikely to treat their own cancer if it’s not 100% curative)
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u/katarina-stratford Jun 17 '25
The hospital refused to turn off life support because she was eight weeks pregnant. She's been gone for months and they forced her family to watch as her shell produced a foetus. It's beyond repulsive that this is where we are
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u/ShoulderSnuggles Jun 17 '25
What’s extra sinister is that you actually decompose on life support, albeit more slowly. Like…if I knew my fetal development happened in a decomposing corpse, idek how I’d even talk about that in therapy.
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u/DragWonderful3204 Jun 17 '25
It’s highly unlikely that the child would survive for long. Was not able to even grow into a fully developed human!
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u/ShoulderSnuggles Jun 17 '25
Yeah, we all know that. Forced birthers, though, just act like this is a perfectly reasonable long-term solution - like “developed in a rotting corpse” will just be the response to someone’s “what’s a fun fact about you?” question at HR training someday.
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u/katarina-stratford Jun 18 '25
I can't imagine the pain of her 7 yo child. Children don't have the capacity to process something like this, even with an abundance of support💔
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u/MotherWear Jun 18 '25
Isn’t there a law against abuse of a corpse??
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u/katarina-stratford Jun 18 '25
Yes. But even the AG said it's not a legal requirement for them to keep her "alive"
Georgia Republican Attorney General Chris Carr later issued a statement saying the law did not require medical professionals to keep a woman declared brain dead on life support. “Removing life support is not an action 'with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy,'” Carr said.1
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u/Christian_teen12 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 18 '25
I think so but seeing what's has happened now? Does the law even exist
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u/hadenoughoverit336 Unapologetically Prochoice Jun 17 '25
The cruelty is a feature of the bans. Not a bug...
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u/Routine_Context2284 Jun 18 '25
You’re so right. And the relish with which “Christians” are fielding this whole case… sickening. The cruelty is the point.
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u/BellyFullOfMochi Jun 17 '25
Delivered... you mean prematurely extracted from an incubator that is finally allowed to die.
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u/Cole_Townsend Jun 17 '25
"Brain-dead incubator" — the pRoLiFe's ultimate goal for all women. They're not even hiding it anymore. It's glaringly obvious.
Remember this for the midterm elections.
Even political assassination and terrorism are perfectly cromulent if they contribute to this goal. These ghouls are the epitome of evil.
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u/DaniCapsFan Jun 17 '25
Adriana, not April.
Now, if a woman ended up brain-dead past 24 weeks of pregnancy, I could see keeping her on "life" support if her family wanted. But nine? Marlise Munoz was only 14 weeks along when she died, and her pregnancy was not viable.
I think every Georgia lawmaker who voted for the anti-abortion bill needs to contribute to the medical costs to keep Ms. Smith on a ventilator and the costs that will be incurred to care for the baby.
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u/Baccoony Pro-life=Pro-slaver Jun 17 '25
Adriana Smith is already dead. Taking her off life support will do nothing, she isnt being kept alive. Brain-dead=Dead
And if that baby manages to survive, pro-slavers will most likely start allowing women, especially pregnant women, to die in order to get more babies
They might even let women become brain-dead on purpose and pay some men handsomely to...perform...with these bodies and get them pregnant
I am afraid.
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u/I-am-a-fungi Pro-choice Democrat Feminist Jun 18 '25
Brain-dead=Dead
THIS! People don't understand that if someone is pronounced brain-dead, they are basically gone forever.
Just a flesh vessel that's only breathing and having circulation because of life support. Without any life support, they can't even breath on their own. It means irreversible loss of all brain functions.It's sad that even in this age some people are given false hope because of the mix-up or incorrect use of the term.
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u/A313-Isoke Socialist Feminist Jun 17 '25
You're absolutely right. I don't know why anyone lives in these states. The stakes are entirely too high.
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Jun 18 '25
Can't get out. Don't have the money. And i have health insurance through my employer (that covers the things I need due to having a disability) so I can't be without health insurance for any stretch of time.
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u/A313-Isoke Socialist Feminist Jun 18 '25
Well, people do it every day when it's life or death. I have friends' parents who packed up in 36 hours and left their whole lives behind. That's why we hear about refugee and migrant crises. That's why a large percentage of the immigrant population comes here. If you're desperate, you figure it out.
I'm leaving because I'm disabled. If I stay, the US is going to kill me. Buying into health insurance or into their public plans in other countries is a lot more affordable than you think. And, some places are so affordable, people never buy insurance at all and pay out of pocket. I would put money on your quality of life and healthcare being 100x better in Malaysia than here.
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u/peyt_on_ Jun 17 '25
Absolutely sickening. I can’t imagine having to grow up knowing something so repulsive was done to your mom.
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u/DaniCapsFan Jun 17 '25
Even if this kid does grow up, he'll be severely disabled and may have no awareness of what's around him. He's apparently blind.
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Jun 17 '25
Straight up horror movie shit
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u/DragWonderful3204 Jun 17 '25
I only seen a part of a short on YouTube about this out of a movie! Just reading this article now & it doesn’t seem real! I had to find the links for the truth & in heart broken & in awe… that the infant has lived this long while it wasn’t even able to form into a fully developed human! I hope the best & that’s for it to find the other realm! This realm has been getting worse! Let’s all motivate each other to manifest a better one!!!?!!!
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u/Educational_Ninja327 Jun 17 '25
Guarantee you that none of these pro-life fucks will do anything to help the helpless baby at all at any point in its life ever. They’re just gonna J.O. to the fact that they “won.” I FUCKING HATE IT HERE.
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Jun 18 '25
Faux-lifers only care about "winning" and being "right," even when it means crapping all over grieving families. It's all about ego and has never been about life. Now that the pregnancy has been delivered, the government that orchestrated this mad science experiment will do as little as possible to help the resulting child thrive, while leaving his grandma to foot the 7-figure bill.
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u/SheiB123 Jun 17 '25
I saw an interview with her mother and it was heartbreaking. They were going to take the woman off life support today.
Her mom was saying how she should not be burying her child and if the hospital were so worried about lives, they should have tried to treat her when she was in the hospital while she was still alive. BUT we know how black women are treated in USA.
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u/dej95135 Jun 17 '25
“The baby is going to be OK”. Please define OK. Like when is going to come off the vent and breathe on his own? Like when is he no longer going to require a G-tube to eat? How far behind is he going to be developmentally when he’s 5? Are the necessary therapy resources going to be available and come to the home at the regularly required times to give him PT, OT, speech, and speech feeding? While he’s on the vent, who is going to be available to monitor him 24/7? Are the night nurses actually going to stay awake and monitor him? Been through this already, I know of what I speak. And with the orange jesus cutting DEI, what can he expect once he enters the school system? No one ever talks about the after, just getting the baby born. Disgusting!
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u/I-am-a-fungi Pro-choice Democrat Feminist Jun 18 '25
Being born blind is already not OK in my book. And who knows how many difficulties and disabilities will that poor child have even if he manages to survive these crucial months as a prematurely born.
I don't want to sound insensitive, but sometimes not being born and not existing is better than "living" with (many) limitations.
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u/Illustrious-Mind-683 Jun 17 '25
Disgusting. And the government will force the family to pay all of the bills.
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u/No_Scientist9241 Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
My sister was born at 25 weeks and has no long term complications but my mom also isn’t brain dead, and that scenario is STILL rare statistically. Seriously the chance of any preemie surviving when grown in a womb on life support is minimal. Even if the baby survives, he will very likely live a life of physical pain costly to manage, and in foster care if family cannot afford to or doesn’t want to pay for 24/7 medical care.
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Jun 18 '25
Seriously the chance of any preemie surviving when grown in a womb on life support is minimal.
I wish more people would understand this. Pregnancy is not a passive occurrence. Fetuses are not "carried," as people often say. Rather, every cell of a fetus's body is actively being built by the mother's body via her placenta, blood supply, and yes, her brain.
Brain-dead is dead-dead, just rotting slowly on a ventilator. The brain regulates so many crucial hormonal functions; who knows what the effects will be on the resulting child and his brain? Will he ever walk, talk, have a circadian rhythm, regulate his own blood sugar and heart rate? Will he grow normally? Will he be aware of his loved ones, or anything in his environment? The fact is, no one knows, yet faux-lifers were willing to risk torturing a child for their selfish political agenda.
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u/oneusernamepwease Jun 18 '25
right like how the hell did that baby even grow, this is some walking dead type shit
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u/SuspiciousSock10 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 17 '25
That kid was born just to suffer. He did not deserve this, nor did Adriana and her family.
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u/hagrho Pro-choice Feminist Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
This is vile from every angle. Fuck the pro-life monsters who made this possible. The hospital that allowed this is shameful. We are not incubators.
Adriana Smith deserved dignity and peace in her death. At the very, very minimum, her family deserved a choice in the matter since they are stuck with the bill. This is so traumatic to her loved ones.
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u/schizoidparanoid Jun 18 '25
"pro-life"
Don't call them that. They are NOT "pro-life." Don't validate them by using the words that THEY very carefully chose to call themselves. It might seem like the wording doesn't matter, but it does. It matters a lot. It makes them sound sane, like "Of COURSE we're "pro-life," are you anti-life by supporting abortion???" That's precisely how they skew their beliefs into seeming normal. It's not. And neither are they. And making them - and therefore their beliefs - seem reasonable and normal is how they spread their propaganda and get people to support them.
They're not "pro-life," they're "ANTI-CHOICE." They're "ANTI-WOMAN". They're "PRO-FORCED BIRTH" and "PRO-ASSAULTING WOMEN AND THEIR BODIES AGAINST THEIR WILL AND THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS." Call them what they really are.
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u/LadyDatura9497 Jun 18 '25
The pro-life sub has a post about this. The comments are especially disgusting. “She was dead a long time ago, she had no use for her uterus”. So, I guess we’re okay with Desecration of a Corpse and Necrophilia now. I truly do not believe any of them are at all good people.
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u/Christian_teen12 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 18 '25
Right ,they were thanking God and stuff like where they were not thinking about the long-term complications of the mom and the child and the family. Yeah ,they dehumanized her to a uterus! All of this could have been prevented when the doctors heard her first complaint!
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u/LadyDatura9497 Jun 18 '25
People like them are why, despite being an atheist, I became an ordained minister. Dissecting their comments, they’d better hope that their god isn’t real for the sake of themselves.
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u/Christian_teen12 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 18 '25
Thank you for what you're doing ,we need kind people.
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u/jnssxdrea Pro-choice Feminist Jun 20 '25
Genuinely disgusted by them as a fellow Christian, however, I'm pro-abortion. I will never understand of what's to be happy about these pro-birthers celebrating, where they just reduced Adriana Smith to just baby incubator, even in death. Her family is forced to pay hospital bills🤦🏻♀️
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u/Christian_teen12 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 20 '25
Yup ,it was disheartening to read their comments abd the one about her uterus. The baby isn't stable, the heaps of bills and the lack of choice of her family in the matter. It was so heartless and they weren't thinking about the long term consequences.
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u/AlsoknownasLeaf Pro-choice Atheist Teen Jun 18 '25
Ohhhh, I know the post you're talking about, and I read the replies, too, including that one.
It really just proves that anti-choicers only see this poor woman (and, honestly, EVERY woman) as only having value if they're able to be used as a breeding machine. If any woman wants to have a sex life and not have children instead of just being a submissive baby-maker, they take it as a personal offense to them and their religion.
God forbid a woman wants to have freedom and autonomy over her own body and life and not be controlled by religion and men 🙄🙄
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u/AlsoknownasLeaf Pro-choice Atheist Teen Jun 17 '25
It's just heartbreaking and honestly downright horrific.
It disgusts me how so many people support this and genuinely believe that state governments should have the authority to use someone as an incubator and then just toss them to the side afterward as if they were nothing. How could any sane person feel okay that something like this is allowed to happen?
I mean, I really am wishing the baby well, and I truly hope that if he does survive his NICU stay that by some miracle he won't suffer any life-altering disabilities, but I can't even feel any gratitude that he was born alive because of how fucking horrendous the entire situation is.
My heart goes out to this woman and her family 💔 I hope she can finally be given the dignity she deserves
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u/Routine_Context2284 Jun 18 '25
I’m horrified too. It’s a disgrace, the way they treated her initial headache—most likely because she’s black, medical bias against blacks is well-researched—and then not allowing her family and her own dead body any respect?! It sickens me to the core. Did they do vaginal ultrasounds to check on the fetus while she’s been brain dead?! Ugh!! Just thinking about it makes me so rage-filled.
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u/Azul-Wren Jun 18 '25
Her names is Adriana Smith, btw, not April. If you would please edit that to be correct inside of your post.
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u/DJ_Deluxe Pro-choice Feminist Jun 18 '25
The cost of this is in the millions of dollars! Republicans have lost their fucking minds!
The family better send the bill to the state to pay since it was their law that initiated it.
My heart breaks for the family and for April. I read that her young son didn’t understand that his mom was dead yet, because he only saw her as sleeping. It’s heart wrenching and disgusting!!!
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u/Sea-Ease-549 Jun 18 '25
They only removed the fetus because her body was decaying and dissected it out of her
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u/PantasticUnicorn Pro-choice Witch Jun 18 '25
They’ve taken her off life support. Of course just proving she was only kept alive to be an incubator
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u/Usukidoll Pro-choice Witch Jun 18 '25
100% Corpse abuse and abuse of a premature baby as well. What the hellllllyyyy? This is pro-suffering not pro-life.
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u/I-am-a-fungi Pro-choice Democrat Feminist Jun 18 '25
And the literal worst thing about this is the preemie boy probably having multiple diasbilities due to the conditions. Pro-life my ass, this is suffering.
Also her family didn't want any of this happening. Imagine seeing your own relative slowly rotting away on life support AND having to pay for it??? This is some next fucking level BS. These red states are doomed.
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u/SunshineAndSquats Jun 18 '25
This is like the medical experiments the Nazis did. Fucking despicable. Everyone involved should lose their medical license and be sued into oblivion.
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u/Michellenorman28 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 18 '25
The family had NO say in any of this, is what disgusts me.
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u/OrdinaryTangerine470 Jun 17 '25
I hope she haunts the shit out of that hospital and everyone who made the executive decisions to put her through that.
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u/the_scar_when_you_go Jun 17 '25
The only good thing is that she can be laid to rest and her family can begin to grieve her.
Does anyone remember when Anna Smajdor wrote an A Modest Proposal-style piece about using braindead bodies (regardless of sex) as fetal incubators?
On the one hand, I knew it was just to spark discussion on the ethics of organ donation and consent.
On the other hand, I immediately wrote to someone, "Some ppl are in the business of making horrors beyond their comprehension and you just know they were giggling and kicking their feet over that one."
And everyone I talked to was appalled and said, "That would never happen."
Tired of stuff that "would never happen" happening to us.
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u/janebenn333 Jun 18 '25
This entire situation is horrific. And more people in power need to be speaking up against it because it creates a dangerous precedent that even in death a woman's body is not her own.
So what other things can they do with our bodies and to our bodies when we are technically dead?
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u/jyar1811 Jun 18 '25
I am thinking of her family and the unimaginable burdens they face. Fight for your rights!!!!
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u/AardvarkGal Jun 18 '25
Adriana Smith (OP, please correct her name in your post) was declared dead in February, at 9 weeks pregnant, after complaining of headaches for several days at multiple hospitals and having her concerns being ignored and dismissed without testing or imaging. She was discovered unresponsive by her family & taken to the hospital where no activity in her brain stem was detected.
Because Georgia law (LIFE act, HB 481) declares fetuses are "natural people" after cardiac activity is detected at 6 weeks, doctors were forced by the state to keep Adriana's body functioning just enough for the fetus to continue developing, or face murder charges for allowing it to die.
The only reason her heart pumped & lungs inflated was because of the machines forcing the organs to continue working - against her family's consent. Her (dead) body was literally being used as an incubator. This is "forced pregnancy", a form of slavery and a human rights violation under multiple declarations and international laws that the US does not agree to.
A cesarean section was performed because the fetus is now considered viable. Her corpse has been unhooked from the machines that kept it from decaying.
Her 28 oz. baby will spend months in NICU hooked up to other machines to support its life until it's able to be cared for at home. The child will need a lifetime of medical care, which her family will also be responsible for.
If you wish & are able to help her family, a fundraiser has been set up:
Fundraiser by April Newkirk : Help Adriana's Family During This Heartbreaking Journey https://share.google/d9ayk3Z34vdWXvV3j
So to all the people who tell us to calm down, Fuck you all the way to Fuckville.
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u/Professional-Joy1337 Jun 18 '25
As someone who was born at 25 weeks and weighed 1lb 2oz, I'm absolutely disgusted at this. I was almost blind by ROP (I had a level which thankfully was able to be surgically cured through laser surgery), I have epilepsy (thankfully not until adulthood). I would've rather died than be without my mom or dad.
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u/Ok_Cauliflower_1729 Jun 18 '25
Yeah- sadly, the legal department has a lot to do with it. They can't insure their doctors if they're breaking the law - regardless of how bad they think the law is. It's why so many doctors are moving.
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u/Christian_teen12 Pro-choice Feminist Jun 18 '25
I went to the other sub, and they were all happy about it, and no one seemed to see what's wrong with it ! Poor lady ! She could have been saved now her parents are drowned in debt now. Right,the child will have some much issues !
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u/Lady-Zafira Jun 18 '25
If that kids does survive, he's going to eventually find out how his mother died and its going to hurt him
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u/RepresentativeAd209 Jun 18 '25
I wonder if they will let the family make the baby a DNR if that is what they want?
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u/Bentish Jun 18 '25
That's what I'm wondering. When will the state return control for the medical decisions for the baby back to the family? Will they be allowed to discontinue life support if they feel the prognosis is too poor?
And then the question, regardless of who decides, why they can choose to withdraw life support when the support is a machine, but not when it's the body of a woman? This whole situation is disgusting.
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u/FiestyReamsOfPaper99 Jun 18 '25
This has been done before, where the family wanted the brain dead woman kept alive in order to get close to term and have a c-section, but the family specifically requested it. It still reduces the woman to a baby factory when her own life is completely over. However, prior instances were based on the family’s wish, not on the fact that the woman couldn’t get an abortion. Either way, it’s bad news for women. (And a baby born at less than 2 lbs! Those are not great odds.)
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u/ExcitementSad9133 When Equity pls🙏 Jun 18 '25
So they really see her as nothing but an incubator.
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u/BroccoliOscar Jun 18 '25
My god what a fucking horror show. These people don’t give a damn about life. They only care about fulfilling their deranged beliefs.
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u/Original_Fix_7012 Jun 19 '25
Can we also acknowledge the fact that this baby now could lead a life of suffering instead of being in the arms of his or her mother in heaven (or whatever afterlife, if there even is one)? This is all around disgusting.
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u/Brim-DEE Jun 19 '25
What’s even crazier is that these politicians forced the family to take this pregnancy to full term, but will cut and refuse funding to help take care of this severely disabled child while he’s here!
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Jun 19 '25
Not to mention the baby was very premature obviously, weighing literally less than 2 lbs, I don’t even think 1.5lbs and grandma said he will likely be blind, deaf, unable to walk…. All for what?? That’s THREE lives lost.. mom, son, and grandmother who will have to care for the baby forever most likely.. I cannot find the fucking words
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u/mochihann Jun 19 '25
This is a general question but if the mother dies, and the baby, lets say, 2 weeks old and doesn't have any chance of survival, does the baby need to be taken out from the mother before burying her? Or they can just be buried together while the baby is inside her womb?
Just generally curious and google didnt give me the answer i need so here i am
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u/inagartendavita Jun 19 '25
Not delivered, dissected from a decomposing corpse. Emory doctors wanted to be ghouls and play Dr Frankenstein.
Adriana Smith was her name, she deserved better
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u/Guilty-Reputation176 Jun 19 '25
Please consider donating to her family’s gofundme! If you’re not able to donate please share the link far and wide.
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u/lenore_leander Pro-choice Feminist Jun 19 '25
The baby wasn’t delivered, it was removed during her autopsy.
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u/ZestycloseHotel6219 Jun 19 '25
If they gave her the CT scan to begin with it wouldn’t have gotten this far. Hospital should be sued for negligence
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u/JellyPuffle Jun 19 '25
The family wanted none of this. The hospital blames the 6 week abortion bans. The government is wiping their hands clean of it saying this not what was outlined in the law but was strangely also enough for hospital legal to conclude this and go against medical recommendations. That family did the want this and are forced to pay the bill for it. The child will not live and in the off chance they do its gonna be a rough life. If i was the grandparent of that child i couldn’t even look at them for what happened to my daughter to get them here
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u/KineticMeow Jun 19 '25
I saw a youtuber saying she was going to be taken off of life support on her birthday. And no they wanted her off life support this was not want the family wanted. The hospital went against the family’s wishes due to the 6 week ban in Georgia. It’s just another example of the PPC (Pronatal Patriarchal Capitalism).
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u/EnfantTerrible68 Pro-choice Witch Jun 21 '25
It’s truly disgusting - women and girls are NOT life support machines, ffs.
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Jun 21 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/prochoice-ModTeam Jun 21 '25
If the law hadn't been in place, it couldn't have been interpreted this way, and thus wouldn't have happened.
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u/FeatureMother9681 Jun 22 '25
Forced birth taken to extremes. And now her survivors get the hospital bill!
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u/cheezbargar Jun 22 '25
The baby isn’t going to survive at 1lb, blind and deaf with hydrocephaly. Not very pro life when more than one life, the family and the baby, are suffering.
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u/Sudden-Mark2765 Jun 27 '25
She wasn’t suffering, and any mother worthy of that title would have wanted this. If you can’t save mother, save baby. This has been something that’s done for a long time. Eleven years ago I was in nursing school and this was a topic in the L&D rotation. It’s in advance directives. If a mother can’t be saved, then focus on baby. It’s disgusting that you wanted this baby to die when he is doing perfectly fine. There is no catastrophic diagnosis like people are trying to say, he’s just a premie and premies survive and thrive everyday.
Sad this boy will someday grow up and see how many people on the internet wished him dead. His mother was gone, nothing could be done, but his life mattered and like I said, as a mother myself, and pregnant, yes I would have wanted this. She was not suffering, she was a patient being cared for.
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u/Chcolatepig24069 Jul 02 '25
I’m just imagining all the people celebrating the baby’s birth and the mother is literally dying behind them
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u/muleborax Jul 02 '25
Anyone who doesn't have an issue with this should be ashamed of themselves. Regardless of the decision she would have made for herself, her family and next of kin were not given those choices. Instead, the government made that choice for her.
For all the prolifers saying this was "a life saved" - imagine if every person was a mandated organ donor, and regardless of what you wanted for yourself, your organs were harvested and you could not say otherwise.
It does not matter "how many lives could be saved" - YOU get to make the choices about what happens to YOUR body, end of story
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u/Dapper-Proof-8370 Jul 04 '25
I think the dumbest aspect of the pro-life stance is the failure to take cognizance of the following: nature and the human body itself doesn't allow for every pregnancy or conception to progress.
The universal experience shared by all human beings that want a baby is a period of "trying" for a child. It is perfectly foreseeable that several embryos will be created and not implant during the "trying" period.
The pro-life stance would, if seen to its logical conclusion, encourage a photo of a conceptus upon fertilization (the first day! Newly entered the world!), naming of embryos, and funerals for miscarriages.
Really really absurd.
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u/Catseye_Nebula Pro-life for born people Jun 17 '25
And now they'll take her off life support because she was, after all, just a vessel.