{"id":134001,"date":"2025-05-26T19:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T19:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/134001\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T19:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T19:21:10","slug":"georgia-woman-kept-on-life-support-for-her-baby-is-a-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/134001\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia woman kept on life support for her baby is a horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adriana Smith and her family are in this tragic ordeal because Republicans created it with abortion bans that limit health care.<\/p>\n

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Mom shares abortion story amidst Georgia restrictions<\/p>\n

Avery Davis Bell had to have an abortion to save her life, but Georgia’s restrictions made this challenging.<\/p>\n

A horror story is unfolding at an Atlanta hospital right now.<\/p>\n

Adriana Smith<\/a>, 30, was nine weeks pregnant when she sought medical treatment after experiencing intense headaches. The hospital didn\u2019t run any tests \u2013 just gave her medication and sent her home, according to reporting from 11Alive<\/a>, an NBC affiliate. The next morning, her boyfriend woke up to her making gargling sounds, believed to be caused by internal bleeding. She was rushed to a different hospital, where a CT scan revealed blood clots in her brain. She was later declared brain dead \u2013 meaning that, legal<\/a>ly<\/a>, she is no longer living.<\/p>\n

Even though she will never regain consciousness, Smith\u2019s body is being kept alive by machines, all because her pregnancy had progressed three weeks beyond the limit set by Georgia\u2019s abortion ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s torture for me,\u201d her mother, April Newkirk, told 11Alive. \u201cI see my daughter breathing, but she\u2019s not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the terrifying reality of what Republicans created \u2013 for women to be stripped of their dignity, to be seen as nothing more than wombs. The GOP allowed this nightmare to happen because they refused to listen to medical professionals who told them laws like the one in Georgia would create complicated scenarios. Now, one family must live with the pain, as well as the financial burden.<\/p>\n

This Georgia woman is an example of what Republicans want<\/p>\n

Smith has been on life support for more than 90 days now. Her pregnancy has progressed to 21 weeks. When she reaches 32 weeks, doctors will try delivering the baby, meaning that until then, her body is being forced to continue breathing, essentially a vessel for her unborn child. According to Newkirk, it\u2019s possible the baby will be born with health complications due to fluid on his brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision should\u2019ve been left to us,\u201d she told 11Alive. \u201cNow we\u2019re left wondering what kind of life he\u2019ll have\u2014and we\u2019re going to be the ones raising him.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Along with her unborn child, Smith is leaving behind a son. The child has been visiting his mother in the hospital and believes she is sleeping<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Newkirk says she doesn\u2019t know whether the family would have chosen to terminate the pregnancy, the option wasn\u2019t even given to them because doctors are required to follow the state\u2019s six-week abortion ban<\/a>. If Roe v. Wade were still the law of the land, they would have had a choice. According to lawmakers, Smith is no longer in imminent danger, a situation in which doctors would be allowed to perform an abortion.<\/p>\n

Imagine that this is your daughter \u2013 a mother, a girlfriend, a person, being treated as less than human to protect the fetus growing inside her. Imagine knowing she is dead and not being able to plan a funeral service or even grieve because her body is still breathing. Imagine knowing that welcoming a child into the world will mean your loved one\u2019s imminent death.<\/p>\n

Opinion alerts:<\/b> Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don’t have the app? Download it for free from your app store<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This Georgia case isn’t an anomaly. Women have been suffering.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first atrocity due to Georgia’s abortion ban. Last year, ProPublica<\/a> reported that two women died from pregnancy and abortion-related issues after the ban went into effect in 2022. Despite these unimaginably bleak stories, Republicans are still rallying against<\/a> abortion regardless of the dangers it poses to women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This is the new normal that Republicans fought for. Even in the wake of this tragedy, members of the party are refusing to take responsibility for this horrible scenario.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life,\u201d Georgia Sen. Ed Setzler, one of the sponsors of the six-week abortion ban, told the Associated Press<\/a>. \u201cI think the hospital is acting appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Smith and her boyfriend wanted this child, it\u2019s important to note that at nine weeks, her fetus would barely be past the embryo stage<\/a> and unable to survive on its own. The choice of what happened next shouldn\u2019t be left to lawmakers who are unaffected by the hospital bills and emotional pain. It should have been left to the family.<\/p>\n

This is not about protecting women. It was never about protecting women.<\/p>\n

\u2028Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Peque\u00f1o on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adriana Smith and her family are in this tragic ordeal because Republicans created it with abortion bans that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[26054,7480,11753,11757,5762,11765,8745,390,11672,10521,11105,6584,12,391,11768,11767,7670,5179,6591,5487,11752,11763,285,5486,2861,11760,11771,11759,10022,17775,11761,5181,49,978,659,11758,11769],"class_list":{"0":"post-134001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-advocacy","10":"tag-center","11":"tag-collection","12":"tag-columnists","13":"tag-columnists-opinions","14":"tag-content","15":"tag-family","16":"tag-issues","17":"tag-left","18":"tag-nbc","19":"tag-negative","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-opinion","22":"tag-opinion-collection","23":"tag-opinion-content","24":"tag-opinions","25":"tag-overall","26":"tag-overall-negative","27":"tag-party","28":"tag-politically","29":"tag-politically-center-left","30":"tag-politics","31":"tag-republican","32":"tag-republican-party","33":"tag-sensitive","34":"tag-sensitive-subjects","35":"tag-sharing","36":"tag-social","37":"tag-social-issues-u0026-advocacy","38":"tag-subjects","39":"tag-u0026","40":"tag-united-states","41":"tag-us","42":"tag-usa","43":"tag-usat","44":"tag-usat-content-sharing-opinion"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}