Brain dead woman taken off life support after giving birth to tiny baby

A brain dead woman who was kept alive so her baby could be born has had her life support turned off.
The boy named Chance was born on Tuesday and is now "fighting for life" in neo-natal intensive care having been born weighing just one pound and 13 ounces. His mum Adriana Smith was just eight weeks pregnant when her harrowing medical ordeal began with severe headaches four months ago.
Ms Smith, who turned 31 while on life support and already had a seven-year-old son, was being kept alive because of her state's strict abortion laws. She had gone to Atlanta's Northside Hospital complaining of headaches but was sent away, without any scans or test being done. She collapsed the next day when her boyfriend discovered her struggling to breathe. According to both the Washington Post and Global News her family has confirmed that Ms Smith's life support has now been turned off.
She was then taken to Emory University Hospital, where she was found to have blood clots in her brain and was declared brain dead. According to the family, doctors at the hospital said they could not legally remove life-sustaining apparatus due to Georgia's laws that prohibit abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected, typically at about six weeks of gestation.
Speaking to WXIA-TV after Ms Smith gave birth to Chace, her mother April Newkirk, said her daughter was barely six months pregnant when the Caesarean section was performed. She said that her new grandson was "expected to be okay."
She added: "He's just fighting. We just want prayers for him."
Georgia's Republican Attorney General Chris Carr clarified in a statement that the state's law doesn't compel medical professionals to maintain life support for a woman declared brain dead.
Last month, Dr Dale Gardiner, an Intensive Care Consultant and member of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said the situation Ms Smith found herself in was highly unusual because life-support is not designed to be long-term treatment for brain-dead patients.
He told the Mirror: "These patients are very physiologically unstable owing to the severity of their brain injury. They are all on intensive care.
"Normally mechanical ventilation and other intensive care interventions are only continued for a very short time to allow family to say goodbye or to enable organ donation (for example, up to a day). It is extremely unusual to continue beyond this point."
Her case has sparked anger around the world at the USA's anti-abortion laws, which were swept in at state level after the Supreme Court overturned 50 years of Roe vs Wade in 2022.
Yesterday in the UK, MPs voted to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in a landmark step. They voted by 379 to 137 in favour of the reform after an emotional debate in the House of Commons.
Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi said her amendment would result in 'removing the threat of investigation, arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment' of any woman who ends their own pregnancy.
She said her amendment will not change time limits for abortion or the regulation of services, but will 'decriminalise women accused of ending their own pregnancies' and take them out of the criminal justice system, 'so they can get the help and support they need'.
In the past three years, six women have appeared in court in England charged with ending or attempting to end their pregnancy outside the rules of abortion law.

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