‘May she finally rest in peace’: Brain-dead woman’s life support switched off after baby was born via emergency C-section

The life support for Adriana Smith, the woman whose body has been kept alive despite being brain-dead, has now been switched off after the child she was pregnant with was delivered by emergency C-section.

Smith’s story caused a wave of outrage across the U.S. and the rest of the world when it was first brought to the public’s attention. But now it’s over as the child that she was pregnant with prior to her death was born, albeit incredibly premature. Despite the circumstances the baby is expected to be OK according to Smith’s mother, April Newkirk.

What happened to Adriana Smith?

Smith, a 30-year-old nurse from Georgia, experienced a brain clot earlier this year which ultimately rendered her brain-dead. She was put on life support but unfortunately there is no coming back from brain death. Typically a person in this state would be allowed to pass due to there being nothing the doctors can do, but Smith was pregnant at the time and the abortion ban in Georgia meant that the hospital had an obligation to keep her unborn child alive.

The laws on abortion differ across the different states but Georgia has a particularly conservative (outdated) stance on the issue. This resulted in Smith being kept alive in order to keep the unborn baby alive. This was all without her loved ones getting a say in the matter. As you’d expect, people were deeply disturbed that a woman’s body should be reduced to nothing more than an incubator for this baby.

Her child was delivered by emergency caesarean section on June 13th and it was confirmed that Smith was taken off of life support on Tuesday, June 17th.

Responses to the birth

While Newkirk expressed frustration that she and Smith’s loved ones had no say in what happened to her, she did say that the baby, whose name is Chance, was wanted by the family. She told 11Alive, “We want the baby. That’s a part of my daughter. But the decision should have been left to us – not the state.”

Chance is currently in the NICU and some are concerned that the child will suffer from all sorts of ailments due to how he was born.

Of course the circumstances of his birth are not Chance’s fault, but still, many were angry and disturbed at how Smith had been treated. Online people shared their thoughts. One person on TikTok wrote, “may she finally rest in peace.” Another, angrier response drew attention to just how morbid the whole ordeal was.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley released a statement claiming that Smith had been “denied dignity and basic human rights.”

If anything, this case has demonstrated just how inhuman Georgia’s abortion laws are. It should have been up to the family to decide what was best for Adriana, not the state.