In Georgia, in the year 2025, a brain dead woman is being kept “alive” so she can continue carrying a pregnancy to term.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse from Atlanta, was hospitalized more than three months ago after a cluster of undiagnosed blood clots left her brain dead. But thanks to Georgia’s “Living Infants Fairness and Equality” (LIFE) Act, a so-called “heartbeat law,” her body is still on life support, incubating a fetus she can no longer consent to carrying.
Smith initially went to the hospital complaining of headaches. She was sent home with meds but woke up the next day gasping for air. By the time doctors scanned her brain, it was too late. But even in death, she’s not free. Not in Georgia. In the eyes of the law, she is no longer a person, but an incubation chamber.
The law, enacted in 2019 but dormant until Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, bans abortion after six weeks, a point when many women don’t even know they’re pregnant. It includes exceptions for rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk.
You might think being brain dead would fall under the “life-at-risk” part, but you’d be wrong. Being brain dead isn’t legally considered a “life-threatening” condition under this law. Her heart’s still beating. That’s enough to claim she is “alive,” so the baby must be kept alive, too.
Smith’s body remains hooked to machines for what could be another three months until the fetus reaches 32 weeks, the minimum point of viability. Her mother, April Newkirk, is left helpless, staring down mounting medical bills and suffering through the emotional turmoil of it all.
Newkirk, unsure of what her daughter would have wanted, believes the choice should’ve been theirs, regardless — not the government’s. “I think every woman should have the right to make their own decision. And if not, then their partner or their parents,” she told Atlanta TV station WXIA.
Now, Newkirk is left wondering what’s to come for her grandchild, should the baby even survive the trauma — and all because of a monstrous law created by vile people who believe a woman’s autonomy ends the moment a fetal heartbeat flickers.
“She’s pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born,” Newkirk told WXIA. “This decision should’ve been left to us. Now we’re left wondering what kind of life he’ll have—and we’re going to be the ones raising him.”
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