Brain dead, pregnant Atlanta nurse kept on life support to grow fetus gives birth to 1lb 13oz preemie named Chance: ‘He's just fighting'
A pregnant woman who has been brain dead since February — and kept alive via life support in order to comply with Georgia's abortion law — gave birth prematurely to a baby boy, ending the months-long medical and ethical ordeal at an Atlanta hospital.
Atlanta nurse Adriana Smith, 31, gave birth on June 13, three months premature via C-section, to a baby who weighs 1 pound 13 ounces and is currently in the neonatal intensive care unit at Emory University Hospital Midtown, according to local reports.
Smith's family members named the baby Chance and hope he'll get a fighting one himself.
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5 Adriana Smith gave birth prematurely to a baby boy while brain-dead.
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'He's expected to be OK,' Smith's mother April Newkirk told local outlet 11 Alive.
'He's just fighting. We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying for him. He's here now.'
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Newkirk previously told the press that the boy could be born with a variety of health problems and that the family is hoping his name brings him good fortune, according to reports.
As the grandmother prays for her grandbaby's tenuous health, Newkirk's daughter Adriana Smith, who turned 31 over the weekend, will finally be taken off of life support, the outlet reported.
'It's kind of hard, you know. It's hard to process,' she said tearfully.
5 Smith gave birth on June 13, three months premature via C-section, to a baby who weighs 1 pound 13 ounces and is currently in the neonatal intensive care unit at Emory University Hospital Midtown.
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Smith entered herself into Emory University Hospital, where she worked as a nurse, in February, with severe headaches. At the time, she was nine weeks pregnant.
She was discharged from the hospital with medication, but soon returned due to the intensity of the headaches.
A CT scan revealed multiple blood clots in her brain. Her health deteriorated while at the hospital, where, within hours, she was declared brain dead.
Smith was then moved to Emory Midtown, where doctors have utilized life-supporting technologies to keep her alive to be in compliance with the state of Georgia's LIFE Act, commonly referred to as the 'heartbeat bill.'
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5 Smith entered herself into Emory University Hospital, where she worked as a nurse, in February, with severe headaches. At the time, she was nine weeks pregnant.
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That law bans any abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and provides fetuses with full legal rights and protections.
Newkirk said that doctors had told the family that Smith was being kept alive to maintain compliance with the law, according to The Guardian.
'We didn't have a choice or a say about it,' she said before Chance's birth. 'We want the baby. That's a part of my daughter. But the decision should have been left to us – not the state.'
Many believed that Chance would not survive due to the circumstances of his gestation, which further impelled critics of the pro-life policy.
5 Smith was then moved to Emory Midtown, where doctors have utilized life-supporting technologies to keep her alive to be in compliance with the state of Georgia's LIFE Act, commonly referred to as the 'heartbeat bill.'
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'The chances of there being a healthy newborn at the end of this is very, very small,' Steve Ralston, director of the maternal fetal medicine division at George Washington University, told The Washington Post.
The hospital's decision to keep Smith alive drew heavy criticism from pro-choice advocates who claimed the dizzying ethical conundrum and extreme heartache are a result of bad legislation.
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'Because of Georgia's cruel abortion ban, Adriana Smith's family is living through a nightmare,' Reproductive Freedom For All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju said in a statement in May.
5 Smith gave birth at Emory University Hospital Midtown.
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'Families deserve the freedom to make their own decision about their loved ones, and prolonging their suffering isn't just horrible policy; it's inhumane. Anti-abortion politicians, including Donald Trump and Governor Kemp, need to be held accountable,' the statement concluded.
State representatives also weighed in as the controversy reached its peak.
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'This is not healthcare. This is sanctioned cruelty,' State Democrat Rep. Kim Schofield said in a statement.
The hospital has not publicly commented on the case, citing patient privacy laws.
Smith, who also has a 7-year-old son, was due to be taken off life support on Tuesday, 11 Alive reported.
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a day ago
A pregnant brain-dead woman in Georgia was kept on life support. Experts say it raises ethical, legal questions
Adriana Smith, a 31-year-old Georgia nurse and mother, was just eight weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead in February after suffering a medical condition. However, the family claims the hospital told them legally she had to be kept on life support to allow the fetus to grow due to the state's strict abortion law. Her family alleges they were not allowed a say in whether to continue her care, according to local Atlanta station 11Alive. Last week, Smith's baby was born by emergency Caesarean section, weighing under 2 pounds and needing care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), reported 11Alive. Smith's family did not respond to ABC News' request for comment. In a statement to ABC News, Emory Healthcare, the health care system Emory hospitals fall under, said its staff makes medical recommendations for patients using many factors. "The top priorities at Emory Healthcare continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients and families we serve. Emory Healthcare uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature and legal guidance to support our providers as they make medical recommendations," the statement read. "Emory Healthcare is legally required to maintain the confidentiality of the protected health information of our patients, which is why we are unable to comment on individual matters and circumstances.' The case has captured national attention and raised numerous legal and ethical questions about medical consent; who should get to make decisions for permanently incapacitated people, especially when pregnant; and whether abortion laws are further complicating pregnancy care. "This is a case that reflects the confusion in the post-Dobbs-era," Michele Goodwin, the O'Neill professor of constitutional law and global health policy at Georgetown Law, told ABC News, referencing the Supreme Court decision that resulted in the overruling of Roe v. Wade. "Because the hospital believed that it could not allow this brain-dead woman to simply be deceased because the state has a very strict abortion law, they believe that they needed to do all matters possible to keep the fetus alive," she continued. What happened to Adriana Smith? Smith, who was 30 at the time, went to Northside Hospital in metro Atlanta in early February after developing severe headaches, her mother, April Newkirk, told 11Alive. Newkirk said Smith was given medication and sent home. She was not given a CT scan and not kept overnight for observation, according to Newkirk. Northside Hospital did not immediately return ABC News' request for comment. Newkirk said Smith's boyfriend woke up to her daughter gasping for air and she was taken to Emory Decatur -- and then Emory University Hospital -- where a CT scan showed multiple blood clots in her brain, according to 11Alive. She was declared brain dead on Feb. 19. The family told the local station that doctors allegedly said they were legally obligated to keep Smith on life support until the fetus was viable. "I think every woman should have the right to make their own decision," Newkirk told 11Alive. "And if not, then their partner or their parents." Newkirk said the family might not have chosen to end the pregnancy, but not having the decision because of the law added to their trauma, reported 11Alive. How does Georgia's abortion law play a role? In 2019, Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Georgia's so-called heartbeat bill, known as the LIFE Act. The law prevents abortions from being performed once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which typically occurs at about six weeks' gestation -- before many women know they're pregnant -- and redefines the word "person" in Georgia to include an embryo or fetus at any stage of development. The ban was initially blocked in court but was reinstated after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022. In September 2024, a state judge ruled that the ban was unconstitutional, but it was reinstated one week later by the Georgia Supreme Court. Goodwin said the act does not explicitly state that a deceased pregnant patient must be kept tethered to mechanical ventilation and there is no legislative history suggesting this was the intent of legislators who wrote the law. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, believes the hospital could have misinterpreted Georgia's abortion law. "What happened had nothing to do with abortion," Caplan told ABC News. "[The hospital] said they felt they had their hands tied. They couldn't do anything. They might break the abortion laws. Stopping care on a dead body that's pregnant is not an abortion. It just isn't. There is no way it can be." Thaddeus Pope, a law professor and bioethicist at the Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, agreed, saying if the family had declined continuing organ-sustaining treatment for Smith, it would not qualify as an abortion. "Yes, it would cause the death of the fetus, but that would not have been the goal or the intent or the motive, and that's a requirement under the definition of an abortion in the state of Georgia," he told ABC News. He added that Emory health care professionals may have been worried about turning off life support due to the "fetal personhood" section of the act. In a statement to 11Alive in May, the Georgia attorney general's office clarified that the act did not require Emory to keep Smith on life support. The office did not return ABC News' request for comment. Who gets to make medical decisions? Typically, hospitals follow advance directives, which are legal documents in which individuals outline instructions for medical care if they become unable to make decisions for themselves. If the individual does not have an advance directive, decisions on medical care generally fall to next of kin, such as a spouse, adult children or parents. It is not clear if Smith had an advance directive, but it likely would have been inapplicable because she was declared legally dead. In he absence of a directive, the decision on care should have fallen to a family member, according to Caplan. "There's no ethical justification for making unilateral decisions about what happened to Ms. Smith," Caplan said. "The family should have been involved to the extent to which they were capable of doing it." He said if the family felt too overwhelmed, then the next step would be getting a judge to appoint an independent guardian who can make decisions, adding, "You don't have the hospital staff do it." Pope said that under the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Act of 2007, a pregnant patient cannot be removed from life-sustaining treatment if the fetus is viable, even if there is an advanced directive request the removal. However, he said this would not apply to Smith because she was declared brain dead. Goodwin said she believes the landscape in a post-Dobbs America means more cases like Smith's are likely to occur and there will be confusion over what treatment to provide. Many state abortion laws have criminal penalties against medical providers, doctors, nurses or hospitals that perform abortions, which leads to providers being overly cautious, she explained. "So, what were the gold standards of treatment have now been put to the sidelines, as there is just simply confusion and a sense that better to not provide services, better to keep a person on ventilation who's brain dead than to act according to medical training and ethical training," Goodwin said. Caplan said there are ethical concerns raised about maintaining artificial breathing and heart function for Smith to help the fetus grow. [moved up] "The baby was incubated in a dead body. Is that normal?" he said. "Did the baby get enough oxygen, nutrients from a dead body Sadly, I'm not yet convinced that just because a baby has been delivered that the outcome is going to be good." Whether the family decided they did or did not want to keep Smith alive to save her baby, the choice should have been theirs, Pope said. "Arguably that same choice that would have been presented to the pregnant patient herself should be presented to the pregnant patient's substitute decision-maker," he said. Is there an obligation to keep the fetus alive? Newkirk told 11Alive doctors told the family that Smith's baby had a build-up of fluid in the brain and there were concerns of health issues including a risk of blindness or not being able to walk. "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," she told the station. Although doctors were hoping to keep Smith alive up until 32 weeks gestation, an emergency C-section was performed at 25 weeks gestation. It's unclear why the emergency C-section was needed. Baby Chance was born weighing 1 pound and 13 ounces and will require NICU care, according to 11Alive. A legally dead pregnant patient being kept on life support for so long is very rare. A 2014 review found most documented cases show gestation being prolonged by two to six weeks in legally dead pregnant patients. Additionally, a systematic review from German researchers found 30 such cases in medical literature between 1982 and 2010. Of those cases, just 12 viable infants were born and survived the neonatal period, which is the first 28 days of life. "I think there's a lot of lessons about the impact of abortion and fetal personhood laws," Pope said. 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The baby of a brain-dead Georgia woman who was kept on life support for months was delivered Friday, according to the woman's family — reigniting debates over the medical consent and end-of-life decisions for pregnant women since the fall of Roe v. Wade. The baby, a boy, weighed 1 pound 13 ounces, the woman's mother said. The family named him Chance. His mother, Adriana Smith, 31, was declared brain-dead in February when she was about nine weeks pregnant. Doctors told her family that maintaining life support was their only option because Georgia bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected around six weeks, the Atlanta-based station 11Alive reported. On Tuesday, Smith was taken off life support, according to the family. 'I'm her mother,' April Newkirk told 11Alive in an interview. 'I shouldn't be burying my daughter.' Smith's story, as told by her family, has painted a picture of the consequences pregnant patients could face if they are no longer capable of making their own medical decisions in states where abortion is largely illegal. As the case garnered nationwide attention, it spurred concerns about how health care providers consider the legal status of a fetus and its mother and their fears about violating the law. Smith's family said Georgia's 'heartbeat' bill forced their hand. 'I'm not saying that we would have chose to terminate her pregnancy,' Newkirk told 11Alive last month. 'What I'm saying is, we should have had a choice.' Smith's baby was delivered via an emergency Caesarean section, Newkirk said. The baby was taken to the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, she said. The specifics of the care Smith received are unclear, and The Washington Post has not been able to independently confirm the details of the baby's delivery or the removal from life support. The Post was unable to reach her family for an interview. Emory Healthcare, where Smith's family says she was treated, said it could not comment on individual matters and circumstances, citing legal requirements to maintain patient confidentiality. In a statement to The Post on Wednesday, Emory added that it 'uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature and legal guidance to support our providers as they make medical recommendations.' In May, when news of Smith's situation emerged, Emory had also cited compliance with 'Georgia's abortion laws' as one factor influencing its treatment recommendations for each patient. Signed in 2019, Georgia's abortion law recognizes a fetus as a person. That legal status, staunchly supported by antiabortion groups, came into fuller view after Roe was reversed in 2022, allowing states to codify fetal personhood measures. Such laws have introduced new issues about civil and criminal liability for providers of reproductive care, including abortion and in vitro fertilization. In May, the confrontation between Smith's care and the law metastasized into a greater conversation among lawmakers, activists and advocates about Georgia's abortion ban. One GOP legislator who sponsored the ban said the hospital acted appropriately. But Georgia's Republican attorney general said the law did not require medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death. Smith first went to a hospital seeking treatment for headaches, according to 11Alive, which first reported the story. She was given medication and released. By the end of the next day, Smith was declared brain-dead, according to her family. A CT scan completed at another hospital had shown blood clots in her brain, but doctors weren't able to save her, according to 11Alive. Smith's family said keeping her on life support was the only option they were given. Newkirk said in May, when Smith was around 21 weeksof pregnancy, that the plan was to keep her daughter on life support until she reached 32 weeks. Since then, Smith had been kept on a ventilator at an Emory hospital where she had worked as a nurse — a fact Newkirk said she wanted others to know. 'The same field that she worked in is the same people who failed her,' Newkirk told 11Alive on Monday. Friday's delivery was a few weeks earlier than doctors planned to deliver the baby, according to Newkirk. It's unclear why the emergency C-section was performed. Throughout interviews with the local outlet, Newkirk said the care for her daughter, who was Black and already had a young son, had been compromised from the beginning, when she sought treatment for the headaches she suffered. On Tuesday, the day Smith was taken off life support, three House Democrats — including Rep. Nikema Williams of Georgia — introduced a resolution that stemmed from her case, describing it as her family's 'prolonged ordeal without their consent' that was the 'direct result of the Black maternal health crisis.' The resolution called on states to repeal laws that ban abortion and to clarify fetal personhood measures. In an interview hours before she said her daughter would be removed from life support, Newkirk said she wished she could have had more time with Smith. She said she wished the same for Smith's two sons. 'Lay on her chest, you know, skin to skin,' she said. 'That's not possible.'
