Georgia woman is brain dead but still on life support | World News

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse and mother from Georgia, was declared brain dead months ago. But she remains on life support. Not because of a medical decision made with her family, but because she was pregnant. Now, her loved ones are demanding answers about Georgia’s strict abortion laws and why they were excluded from decisions about her care.Smith, a regered nurse at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, was about nine weeks pregnant when she began experiencing severe headaches in February. She went to Northside Hospital seeking help but was released after being given medication. Her mother, April Newkirk, says no scans or tests were performed.
“They gave her some medication, but they didn’t do any tests, didn’t do any CT scans. If they did, they would have caught it,” Newkirk told local news outlet KKTV11.
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The next morning, Smith’s boyfriend noticed she was gasping and gargling in her sleep – symptoms Newkirk now believes indicated internal bleeding. Smith was rushed to the hospital where she worked, and a CT scan revealed multiple blood clots in her brain. It was too late. Doctors declared her brain dead.
More than three months later, Smith remains on life support, her family watching her breathe through a machine while knowing she is no longer alive. Her son visits her bedside, too young to fully comprehend the situation.
“It’s torture for me,” said Newkirk. “I come here and I see my daughter breathing on a ventilator, but she’s not there.”
Her family says they had no say in the matter because of Georgia’s heartbeat law, which bans abortions once a foetal heartbeat is detected, typically occurring around six weeks into pregnancy.Story continues below this ad
Smith is now 21 weeks pregnant. Doctors recently transferred her to Emory Midtown, which is better equipped for obstetric care. The plan is to keep her on life support until the foetus is considered viable at around 32 weeks. But the health of the ba is uncertain.
“She’s pregnant with my grandson, but my grandson may be blind, may not be able to walk, wheelchair-bound. We don’t know if he’ll live once she has him,” Newkirk said. “It should have been left up to the family.”
Smith’s case highlights a legal and ethical grey area. Under Georgia’s law, reinstated in 2024 the state Supreme Court, there are limited exceptions to the abortion ban, including for rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger. But because Smith is brain dead, she is no longer considered at risk. Her medical team is therefore legally obligated to keep her body alive until the foetus reaches viability.
Adriana Smith’s story touches on two major systemic issues: the rise of restrictive abortion laws across conservative states and the broader crisis of healthcare access and affordability in the US.Story continues below this ad
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, individual states were given the authority to regulate abortion. Since then, about 20 states, mostly in the South, have passed laws banning or severely restricting the procedure. In Georgia, the 2019 Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act was struck down a lower court but later reinstated the state’s Supreme Court in 2024.
Judge Robert C.I. McBurney, who originally overturned the law, ruled that it violated the Georgia Constitution infringing on a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.
These laws have sparked a wave of legal challenges and growing concern among healthcare providers. Critics say such laws force doctors to delay care for patients with dangerous pregnancies until their condition becomes life-threatening. Dr. Melissa Kottke, an OB-GYN at Emory, warned lawmakers in 2019 that, “(doctors) would feel the need to wait for a higher blood pressure, wait for a higher fever – really got to justify this one – bleed a little bit more.”
Evidence also suggests that abortion bans are not stopping abortions. In fact, in nearly every state that banned the procedure, the number of women obtaining abortions has increased since 2020. Many travel out of state. Others receive abortion pills via mail under shield laws that protect out-of-state providers.Story continues below this ad
Georgia’s healthcare system, meanwhile, continues to rank among the worst in the country. According to WalletHub’s 2024 report on the Best & Worst States for Health Care, Georgia ranks near the bottom in both quality and accessibility.
Even those with employer-sponsored insurance, covering more than half of Georgia’s population, struggle with costs. A recent survey Curative Insurance Company found that 41 per cent of working adults in the Atlanta metro area have delayed care due to cost, and 50 per cent have skipped filling prescriptions despite being insured. These deferrals often lead to more serious health complications and higher long-term costs.
“This model is failing,” said Curative CEO Fred Turner. “Workers and their families are forced to make impossible choices between their health and financial stability.”
For Adriana Smith and her family, that failure is not abstract. It is playing out in real time, in a hospital room, where a brain-dead woman is kept alive for a pregnancy whose outcome is uncertain, while her family is powerless to intervene.