ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - The family of a pregnant metro Atlanta woman declared brain dead is claiming she is being kept alive only to comply with Georgia’s six-week abortion ban law.

According to information the family of Adriana Smith provided on a GoFundMe campaign page Friday, Smith was placed on life support after suffering a medical incident in February. At the time, she was eight weeks pregnant, but Georgia’s abortion law, also called the heartbeat ban, bars abortion procedures after six weeks of pregnancy when a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

“Due to expecting her unborn child she (will) be kept on life support due to heartbeat law in Georgia,” the GoFundMe states, whose organizer was April Newkirk, Smith’s mother. “We had no say so regarding her lifeless body and unborn child.”

Georgia’s abortion ban, known as the LIFE Act, allows for exceptions to the limitations in cases of rape, incest or if the life of the mother is at stake.

Smith doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into any of those categories.

Newkirk called the situation “deeply saddening and heartbreaking.”

Emory Hospital Midtown, in a statement to Atlanta News First, noted that they comply with Georgia’s abortion law and use “consensus from clinical experts, medical literature and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations.”

“Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve,” the hospital said in a statement.

Emory Healthcare, which runs the hospital, has not explained how doctors decided to keep Smith on life support except to say in a statement they considered “Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.”

Another statement from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr seemingly contradicted what Smith’s family had been told, though.

“Our prayers go out to the family of Adriana Smith during this difficult time,” said a spokesperson with Carr’s office. “There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death. Removing life support is not an action ‘with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.’”

In the runup to its passage, the LIFE Act was extremely controversial as state lawmakers set out to make Georgia one of the most restrictive states in the nation on abortion. Several advocacy groups warned of the unintended consequences of such a limiting policy.

“This was exactly what we were talking about,” said Danielle Rodriguez, the Georgia state coordinator for the reproductive rights group Sister Song. “I do believe that this is going to continuously happen until legislators stand up and repeal the abortion ban.”

Said Rodriguez: “These aren’t isolated events. This is continuously happening, we just don’t know all the stories.”

The situation, Rodriguez said, is made worse by the fact that Smith was sent home from two hospitals before suffering the medical incident that landed her on life support, her family confirmed in Friday’s posting.

“She should’ve been listened to first. That’s why we say trust Black women,” said Rodriguez. “It’s scary, because it could happen to any one of us.”

State Sen. Ed Setzler (R-Acworth), who sponsored and championed the LIFE Act, applauded the hospital’s decision to keep Smith alive until the baby can be delivered.

“I’m thankful that the hospital recognizes the full value of the small human life living inside of this regrettably dying young mother,” he said. “Mindful of the deep pain of this young mother’s family, the wisdom of modern medical science to be able to save the life of her unborn child is something that I am hopeful in future years will lead to great joy, with her child having a chance to grow into vibrant adulthood. I would be thankful if the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act played a small part in taking the tragic, unavoidable death of this young mother and allowing at least one of the two lives now hanging in the balance to be saved.”

David S. Cohen, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law in Philadelphia, said the hospital might be most concerned about part of the law that gives fetuses legal rights as “members of the species Homo sapiens.”

Cohen said Emory may therefore consider Smith and the fetus as two patients and that once Smith was on life support, they had a legal obligation to keep the fetus alive, even after she died.

“These are the kind of cases that law professors have been talking about for a long time when they talk about fetal personhood,” he said.

State Rep. Nabilah Islam Parkes, an Atlanta-area Democrat, said Friday that she sent a letter to state Attorney General Chris Carr asking for a legal opinion on how Georgia’s abortion law applies when a pregnant woman is brain dead.

Unequal access to care for Black women

It’s not clear what Smith said when she went to the hospital or whether the care she was given was standard for her symptoms. But Black women often complain their pain isn’t taken seriously, and an Associated Press investigation found that health outcomes for Black women are worse because of circumstances linked to racism and unequal access to care.

Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s abortion law, said: “Black women must be trusted when it comes to our health care decisions.”

“Like so many Black women, Adriana spoke up for herself. She expressed what she felt in her body, and as a health care provider, she knew how to navigate the medical system,” Simpson said, noting that by the time Smith was diagnosed “it was already too late.”

It’s unclear whether the clots in Smith’s brain were related to her pregnancy.

But her situation is undoubtedly alarming for those seeking solutions to disparities in the maternal mortality rate among Black women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women had a mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023. That’s more than three times the rate for white women, and it is higher than the rates for Hispanic and Asian women.

What is Smith’s current situation?

While Smith is on a ventilator and likely other life-support devices, being declared brain dead means she is dead.

Some experts refer to “life support” as “maintenance measures,” “organ support” or “somatic support,” which relates to the body as distinct from the mind.

Emory has not made public what is being done to allow Smith’s fetus to continue to develop.

It is not clear whether Smith, whose mother said she was a nurse at Emory University Hospital, had health insurance.

But JoAnn Volk, a professor, founder and co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said that that for people with health insurance, it’s generally up to the insurer to determine whether care is medically necessary and covered under the plan.

While it is unclear how much it will cost to keep Smith on life support until the fetus can be delivered, or who will be responsible for that cost, her mother’s GoFundMe page mentions Smith’s 7-year-old son and notes that the baby could have significant disabilities as it aims to raise $275,000.

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