Adriana Smith, 30, was a nurse who died in February this year after suffering from severe headaches.
The family of a pregnant brain-dead woman who was kept on life support to incubate her premature foetus have revealed they will live-stream her funeral for those who donated to her medical funds.
Adriana Smith, 30, was a nurse who died in February this year after suffering from severe headaches. She had a seven-year-old existing son and was around nine weeks’ pregnant at the time.
Her boyfriend woke to the sounds of her gasping for air the day she had been sent home from hospital – but when she was rushed back to hospital, she was found to have blood clots on her brain.
Adriana was declared brain-dead – meaning there was zero chance of her ever recovering and regaining consciousness – and was hooked up to life-support machines, which artificially kept blood pumping around her body.
Thanks to Georgia’s draconian pro-life laws, which ban abortion once a foetal heartbeat can be detected, doctors refused to take Adriana off the machines. As reported by the Mirror, they instead planned to keep her body as an incubator until the foetus had reached viability in August.
Despite Adriana’s family’s pleas to let their daughter rest in peace, Emory University Hospital in Atlanta said it uses “consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers” as they make treatment recommendations “in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws”. It added: “Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve.”
The foetus, which Adriana’s family named ‘Chance’, was diagnosed in the womb with severe medical problems, and Adriana’s mother April Newkirk said at the time they weren’t even sure if he would survive the birth. She said he could be born with life-threatening disabilities which would affect his quality of life.
Doctors finally delivered Chance via C-section in the early hours of June 13, after four months of being kept on life support. He weighed just 538g, less than two pounds, but was born living at 27 weeks’ gestation. Doctors now say he is in a critical but stable condition.
Ms Newkirk wrote six days later, “Baby chance is doing good, keep praying it very early.”
She added: “I can’t believe this I [can’t] sleep but my God I serve I trust him I’m going to be strong but I’m hurting so bad inside.”
She later told press that her daughter was barely six months pregnant when Chance was cut out of Adriana’s womb, but he was “expected to be okay”.
“He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him,” she said, adding that Chance was “fighting for his life” in neo-natal intensive care.
Doctors finally turned off the machines that had prolonged Adriana’s bodily functions shortly after the operation and returned her remains to her devastated family.
The funeral will now be held on Saturday June 28, and Ms Newkirk has agreed to live-stream the ceremony so that the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who’ve been gripped by Adriana’s ordeal can say their goodbyes.
“For everyone around the world. I am very grateful and thankful to you for your support,” she wrote on the family’s GoFundMe page, which has raised nearly $440,000 (£320,000) in donations for medical fees.
“Adriana Smith’s funeral will be livestream. And as soon as I get the link, I will share it for everyone to join me and my family. To say our final Farwell until we meet again my daughter,” she added.
“I want to thank everyone for the support that I received from each and every one of you. I am so grateful to have people from all over the world support. Please continue to pray for me and my family. I will update Monday about baby Chance.”
Adriana’s case has sparked debate around the world about America’s clampdown on abortion and women’s reproductive rights. Republican lawmakers in Georgia brought in the LIFE bill shortly after the Supreme Court struck down Roe vs Wade, which had allowed women to access abortion for 50 years, which severely restricts women from seeking termination of their pregnancy after around six weeks.
