
Baby of brain-d*ad pregnant woman kept alive under Georgia abortion law has been delivered via C-section
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The baby of Adriana Smith, a brain-dead pregnant woman who was being kept alive by ventilators under Georgia’s abortion law, was delivered on Friday, her family said. Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, told NBC affiliate WXIA of Atlanta that the baby, named Chance, was born prematurely via emergency cesarean section. She said the baby weighed about 1 pound, 13 ounces, and is in the neonatal intensive care unit.
“He’s expected to be OK,” she told the station. “He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying for him.”
Smith also has an older son. Newkirk did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment on Tuesday. She previously told WXIA that the family was required to keep Smith alive under the state’s near-total abortion ban, known as the LIFE Act. Smith, whose family celebrated her 31st birthday on Sunday, has been hospitalized since February after she initially sought treatment for severe headaches, her family has said. Newkirk stated that Smith initially went to Northside Hospital but was released and given medication. She said the hospital did not run any scans or tests.
Northside did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. A day after she sought treatment, Smith’s boyfriend woke to find her gasping for air and making gargling noises, Newkirk told WXIA. Smith was rushed to Emory Decatur Hospital and then transferred to Emory University Hospital, where a CT scan showed multiple blood clots in her brain, the station reported. Newkirk mentioned that her daughter was declared brain-dead and placed on a ventilator. She told WXIA this week that Smith will be taken off life support on Tuesday.
"It’s kind of hard, you know," she told the station. "It’s hard to process."
In Georgia, abortions are illegal after six weeks of pregnancy. Exceptions include some situations to protect women’s lives and health, when fetal anomalies are detected, and in documented cases of rape and incest.
The state Attorney General’s Office said in May that nothing in the LIFE Act “requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death,” WXIA reported. The office stated that removing a patient from life support “is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy." However, Republican state Sen. Ed Setzler, who sponsored the 2019 law, told The Associated Press that he supported the hospital's actions.