Case of brain-dead pregnant woman kept on life support in Georgia raises tricky questions

By KATE BRUMBACK SUDHIN THANAWALA and GEOFF MULVIHILL ATLANTA AP The development of a pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead and has been kept on life backing for three months has given rise to complicated questions about fetal personhood and abortion laws Related Articles Judge OKs Iowa limits on K- gender identity sexual orientation teaching but not elective programs Trump asks the Supreme Court to allow his ruling body downsizing plans to proceed Children die as USAID aid cuts snap a lifeline for the world s the majority malnourished Trump suspends asylum system leaving immigrants to face an uncertain future Trump s Mideast trip splashes out on deals and diplomacy but is quiet on human rights Adriana Smith a -year-old nurse and mother was about two months pregnant on Feb when she was declared brain dead according to an online fundraising page started by her mother Doctors noted Georgia s strict anti-abortion law requires that she remain on life advocacy until the fetus has developed enough to be delivered her mother wrote The law one of a wave of measures enacted in conservative states after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in restricts abortion once cardiac activity is detected and gives personhood rights to a fetus Smith s mother says it has left her family without a say in a formidable situation and with her due date still months away the family is left wondering whether the baby will be born with disabilities or can even survive Certain activists plenty of of them Black women like Smith say it raises issues of racial equity What does the law say Emory Healthcare which runs the hospital has not explained how doctors decided to keep Smith on life aid except to say in a report they considered Georgia s abortion laws and all other applicable laws The state adopted a law in to ban abortion after cardiac activity can be detected about six weeks into pregnancy that came into effect after Roe v Wade was overturned That law does not explicitly address Smith s situation but allows abortion to preserve the life or physical vitality of the pregnant woman Three other states have similar bans that kick in around the six-week mark and bar abortion at all stages of pregnancy David S Cohen a professor at Drexel University s Thomas R Kline School of Law in Philadelphia revealed the hospital might be preponderance concerned about part of the law that gives fetuses legal rights as members of the species Homo sapiens Cohen commented Emory may therefore consider Smith and the fetus as two patients and that once Smith was on life assistance they had a legal obligation to keep the fetus alive even after she died These are the kind of cases that law professors have been talking about for a long time when they talk about fetal personhood he disclosed Personhood divide within anti-abortion movement Anti-abortion groups are divided over whether they should sponsorship personhood provisions which are on the books in at least states according to the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice Specific argue that fertilized eggs embryos and fetuses should be considered people with the same rights as those already born This personhood concept seeks to give them rights under the th Amendment to the U S Constitution which says a state can t deprive any person of life liberty or property without due process or law nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws Chosen saw personhood as politically impractical especially after personhood amendments to state constitutions were rejected by voters in Colorado Mississippi and North Dakota between and Those who steered away sought laws and restrictions on abortion that stopped short of personhood although they were often informed by the concept Personhood proponents argue this lacks moral clarity A few personhood proponents have been sidelined in national anti-abortion groups the National Right to Life Committee cut ties with its Georgia Right to Life affiliate in after the state wing opposed bills that restricted abortion but allowed exceptions for rape and incest Unequal access to care for Black women The Associated Press has not been able to reach Smith s mother April Newkirk But Newkirk reported Atlanta TV station WXIA that her daughter went to a hospital complaining of headaches and was given medication and published Then her boyfriend awoke to her gasping for air and called Emory University Hospital determined she had blood clots in her brain and she was declared brain dead It s not clear what Smith revealed when she went to the hospital or whether the care she was given was standard for her features But Black women often complain their pain isn t taken seriously and an Associated Press inquiry discovered that robustness outcomes for Black women are worse because of circumstances linked to racism and unequal access to care Monica Simpson executive director of SisterSong the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Georgia s abortion law commented Black women must be trusted when it comes to our healthcare care decisions Like so multiple Black women Adriana spoke up for herself She expressed what she felt in her body and as a robustness care provider she knew how to handle the clinical system Simpson reported noting that by the time Smith was diagnosed it was already too late It s unclear whether the clots in Smith s brain were related to her pregnancy But her situation is undoubtedly alarming for those seeking solutions to disparities in the maternal mortality rate among Black women According to the Centers for Syndrome Control and Prevention Black women had a mortality rate of deaths per live births in That s more than three times the rate for white women and it is higher than the rates for Hispanic and Asian women What is Smith s current situation While Smith is on a ventilator and likely other life-support devices being declared brain dead means she is dead Chosen experts refer to life help as maintenance measures organ endorsement or somatic encouragement which relates to the body as distinct from the mind Emory has not made society what is being done to allow Smith s fetus to continue to develop In another affair in Florida doctors successfully delivered the baby of a -year-old woman who was declared brain-dead while weeks pregnant but not without weeks of sustained monitoring testing and medicinal care The woman s family desired to keep the fetus physicians with the University of Florida College of Medicine declared in a paper On her first day of admission doctors administered hormones to raise her blood pressure and placed a feeding tube After she was transferred to an intensive care unit an obstetric nurse stayed by her bedside continuously to monitor the fetus heart rate and movements She was on a ventilator regularly received steroids and hormones and needed multiple antibiotics to treat pneumonia Her diagnostic band encompassed multiple specialties obstetrics neonatology radiology and endocrinology Doctors performed surgery to remove the fetus at weeks when its heart rate fell and the baby appeared to be in good fitness at birth We don t have great science to guide clinical decision making in these cases declared Dr Kavita Arora an obstetrician and gynecologist in North Carolina who raised concerns about the effect of prolonged ventilator use on a fetus There entirely aren t a lot of cases like this The paper warned that costs should not be underestimated While it is unclear how much it will cost to keep Smith on life encouragement until the fetus can be delivered or who will be responsible for that cost her mother s GoFundMe page mentions Smith s -year-old son and notes that the baby could have considerable disabilities as it aims to raise Associated Press writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed reporting