Brain-dead woman must carry fetus to birth because of abortion ban, family says

[Along Came Jones]

This is true. That's why my husband and I have DNRs, specific to various situations. Or it's part of why.

The other reason is, people ARE emotional. My mom had an aneurysm when she was only 50. So young. Her EEGs showed no conscious brain activity. I wanted so badly for them to keep her alive. I wanted her no matter how compromised should she ever wake up, and I was ready to move to her city and feed and change and aspirate her for decades if that's what it took.

My stepfather, though, knew she wouldn't want to live like that. As her immediate next of kin above her children he was legally able to make the decision, this wasn't Texas or another state where it could more easily have turned into a Schiavo case.

Now OTOH my sister and I knew what my FIL said was true and we all discussed it rationally and hugged and she was taken off life support about 24 hours after the anyeurism. I do feel in this TX case since she is incompetent the family should be able to make the decision but that's how *I feel,* not.TX law.

Does it suck, yes, obviously. But this is what.voters want. God forbid -- and I mean that -- that a situation similar to this arose for them, they'll be pumped and sucked and brought back from cardiac events or further brain bleeds or kidney failure over and over again. That's why voting is important, and so is thinking, but none of this is up to me.

...

Now. I do know if I were told I my brain was dying and I was going to go into a coma and asked if I wanted to be kept physically alive so my child could go to term, I would have sad yes...if it were happening today. In my exact family situation. With my husband able to take care of the baby. Etc. Etc. Again...choice does NOT mean "abortion!!!!!! Now!" Choice...is...choice. Why is it so hard for conservatives to understand that?

And Dems and many Independents and many Republicans don't just fight for our own choice. We fight for it for others bc situations like this can and do happen.

But TX has its own rules so what can I say...they live with those consequences...no matter what form that "living" entails.

At the risk of sliding off topic, in a rare bipartisan vote the Texas Senate voted unanimously (31-0, I think) to clarify the permissible medical exceptions for life-threatening complications. That was the end of April. Need to look to see whether or not the House followed suit. Not what most Texas women want but a step forward.

Thank you for the insightful personal post! I have health issues which make every day above ground a good day. Most better than others. To ease the burden of decision making on my wife and family I have a DNR written and filed, and I've made my preference widely known both to my family and to my doctors. If possible, I believe everyone ought to do something the same.

 

[EnchantedMuggle]

At the risk of sliding off topic, in a rare bipartisan vote the Texas Senate voted unanimously (31-0, I think) to clarify the permissible medical exceptions for life-threatening complications. That was the end of April. Need to look to see whether or not the House followed suit. Not what most Texas women want but a step forward.

Thank you for the insightful personal post! I have health issues which make every day above ground a good day. Most better than others. To ease the burden of decision making on my wife and family I have a DNR written and filed, and I've made my preference widely known both to my family and to my doctors. If possible, I believe everyone ought to do something the same.

I don't know why I kept typing TX instead of GA but thanks very much for the heads-up! And you're welcome! ❤

 

[BirdinHand]

... am I trippin' here? Why wouldn't they save the life of the child if they could? She's dead, and I doubt she'll care if the baby uses her womb for a few more months.

I don't see the value in letting the child die with the mom if we can avoid it.

She’s dead. She died when she was around 8-9 WEEKS pregnant. Early in her FIRST TRIMESTER.

They’ve now kept her body alive and the fetus is at 21 weeks gestation and already has multiple potentially permanent and devastating disabilities. Perhaps because it’s been growing since 8-9 weeks gestation in a brain dead body. .

This is a completely gross situation. Can every woman now expect to have her family stripped of power or attorney and medical decision making on her behalf as soon as a pregnancy test comes up positive?



MAGA ‘Merica.

Where women truly are reduced to incubators.

 

[BirdinHand]

In the three years since RvW was overturned at the federal level, leftists have found THREE dead women they can drag around as a prop (ignoring the living babies developing inside of those women....women who chose NOT to kill their babies) to bemoan the federal decision, because they are really really really really mad that they cant kill this baby....meanwhile 2.4 MILLION babies have still been killed in the name of choice in that same time frame.

And you people will see that and think it’s the pro life people standing for the babies that are the evil scumbags.

I didn’t realize that 3 women’s bodies have been used as incubators against their wishes and their family wishes in 3 years.

That’s deplorable.

You seem to think that’s good news?

 

[BirdinHand]

I am 100% pro-choice but I can see the difficulty here. Her wishes may have been that the child survive.

The issue seems to be that the family - including the presumed father of the fetus - has not been able to make a choice.

She was only 8-9ish weeks pregnant when she died.

We aren’t talking about someone that was close to term. We are talking about 90+ days now of keeping this woman’s body “alive” - without the family (including boyfriend from what I’ve read) even getting a CHOICE.

That’s just…so very wrong.

 

[Tettsuo]

She’s dead. She died when she was around 8-9 WEEKS pregnant. Early in her FIRST TRIMESTER.

They’ve now kept her body alive and the fetus is at 21 weeks gestation and already has multiple potentially permanent and devastating disabilities. Perhaps because it’s been growing since 8-9 weeks gestation in a brain dead body. .

This is a completely gross situation. Can every woman now expect to have her family stripped of power or attorney and medical decision making on her behalf as soon as a pregnancy test comes up positive?



MAGA ‘Merica.

Where women truly are reduced to incubators.

No more or less gross than keeping her body alive long enough to harvest her organs.

Now, I'd agree with you if the baby is going to die, making this a waste of time. If we don't know what's going to happen to the child, why not do what we can to save it?

 

[CaughtInThe]

Does that mean if she was 2 days pregnant then they would keep her body, although she's dead, going for 8 months and 28 days?

 

[Along Came Jones]

Oh cool, this person wants us to abide by the possible choices of braindead people.

Didn't take long too drop the mask, huh?

Well worth considering the possible choices Adriana Smith might have expressed prior to her brain death.

 

[choiceone]

keeping a brain dead woman suffering for a fetus is insane.

There is no suffering because a brain dead woman is a corpse. However, the state forcing the hospital to use the corpse to continue a pregnancy to make a future baby in disregard of the once-living person's living will is just the beginning.

Eventually, it will force hospitals to harvest the bodily organs of corpses against the persons' living wills to use them for transplants for the rich people who can afford to buy them to extend their lives a few years.

Then, there will be states that force the harvesting of extra bodily organs of the living homeless who have been evicted for inability to pay the outrageous rents imposed by the rich real estate corporations.

And the rich corporate higher ups will then be forcing the bodily organs of the dead and the living to keep on working for capitalism. Your extra kidney will be taken from you to be the slave of capitalism because "you don't need it."

It all begins with the anti-abortion activists, who don't respect "human life" at all. They only respect mindless, immoral biological functioning against the living will of actual living human mind.

 

[Metric Mouse]

The next of kin have not mentioned their position either way. But as next of kin, they should have legal say. I stead, the state is taking that away from them.

Is it? Seems they are happy enough.

Why?

A living baby should have more rights than dead tissue that isn't alive.

There is no baby. Just a fetus. A fetus has no rights nor is a person per the Constitution and federal law.

For sure.
Some silly backwards regressive states still charge murder for killing a fetus, but the point remains it should be saved even if the mother is dead. Many hospitals try to save the fetus even if the mother dies delivering it. Crazy but true.

 

[Along Came Jones]

I don't know why I kept typing TX instead of GA but thanks very much for the heads-up! And you're welcome! ❤

Ignore the unreflective posts coming your way. Your comment was thoughtful and sincere as well as reflective.

 

[choiceone]

Does that mean if she was 2 days pregnant then they would keep her body, although she's dead, going for 8 months and 28 days?

If they could.

 

[BirdinHand]

And Dems and many Independents and many Republicans don't just fight for our own choice. We fight for it for others bc situations like this can and do happen

This.


What bothers me the most about this is that the family hasn’t been able to make the choice.

And now, they are facing…so much MORae awful.

Eventually, they’ll have to face her being sliced open to deliver this fetus. A fetus we already know has multiple disabilities.

And they’ll probably also be the ones raising that baby, if it even lives.

And this time? This period of being just held captive without having CHOICE…will haunt ALL of their lives. The living child, the boyfriend, the parents…and then potentially even that fetus who may/may not live and may/may not have multiple severe disabilities



It’s just a REALLY heavy situation and they’ve had no voice in it.

And that’s profoundly disturbing

 

[Bodi]

So wait a minute. Are you guys saying you want the child to perish for no reason other than the mother is brain dead? One of the great advancements of medical technology is that doesn’t have to happen anymore.

If the parents / care givers want to end her suffering and terminate her life then the baby dies...


d

 

[Bodi]

Does that mean if she was 2 days pregnant then they would keep her body, although she's dead, going for 8 months and 28 days?

Yes.


g

 

[Gordy327]

Is it? Seems they are happy enough.

Yes, the state is. The decision belongs with the next of kin. They have not spoken regarding their wished in the matter.

A living baby should have more rights than dead tissue that isn't alive.

You seem confused. There is no baby. The unborn have no rights, period.

For sure.
Some silly backwards regressive states still charge murder for killing a fetus,

sill backwards states also think a fetus is a person or has rights too.

but the point remains it should be saved even if the mother is dead.

Why? Thats still for the kin to decide. In this particular situation, the fetus may not survive anyway.

Many hospitals try to save the fetus even if the mother dies delivering it. Crazy but true.

That occurs when birth is already in process.

 

[Gordy327]

Well worth considering the possible choices Adriana Smith might have expressed prior to her brain death.

Unless she had something in legal writing, it means nothing and is speculative at best.

 

[Hatuey]

Well worth considering the possible choices Adriana Smith might have expressed prior to her brain death.

Ah, see what I mean? It is no longer about a woman's choice, but possible choices. What if the possible choice was for not being kept going and used as a embryonic pod? Does only the imaginary possible choice you came up with count?

 

[CaughtInThe]

So the First Lady could get pregnant from that guy from Canada, pass away two days later and they would keep her alive for 8 months and 28 days and Donald Trump would have no say so.

 

[choiceone]

But, obviously, she's not dead. If she were the baby would be dead too. If she were dead, there'd be no need to pull the plug.

Nope. The fetus is being kept alive because the hospital is causing her blood to continue to circulate while oxygenating it and infusing it with nutrient, so the blood can reach the placenta, which transfers oxygen and nutrients from the blood of a corpse to the fetus.

She is not only dead, but was declared dead three months ago. If "the plug were pulled," the machine would stop forcibly oxygenating the blood and forcing it to continue circulating artificially. The corpse is a corpse, but superficially and artificially, they are making the blood circulate and filling with the necessary ingredients for the fetus to continue growing.

It's so ghoulish it's like a horror film.

 

[choiceone]

Of course, her next of kin have not objected to keeping the baby alive, have they?

My understanding is that they, like the next of kin in the Texas case, did so. But the Georgia law is different. It is one that says in the case of a pregnant woman, the living will of the one who dies does not have the authority, but rather the state has it. The hospital doctors told the mother of the deceased that they were being forced by the state law to keep the corpse hooked to the ventilator, etc.

This is very different from a case a few years ago in Michigan where the next of kin had the authority and chose to continue the ventilator for some days so there could be a newborn. This Georgia case is about state control of the corpse.

 

[choiceone]

Unless she had something in legal writing, it means nothing and is speculative at best.

No. According to the new Georgia law, the state can disregard the living will of a pregnant person in order to use the corpse to continue growing the fetus to a point where it can be born alive. Apparently, perhaps 20 or so states have this same type of law. So even if you leave an official living will or appoint a person to have authority to pull the plug on medical technology to keep you alive, the state can override your will and that person's will, too. This is about state control of the pregnant woman's corpse.

 

[Bonnot]

Adriana's family will be expected to pay for 7 months of medical care they didn't ask for or want, all so conservatives can force birth upon women, even those clinically dead.

 

[BirdinHand]

No more or less gross than keeping her body alive long enough to harvest her organs.

Now, I'd agree with you if the baby is going to die, making this a waste of time. If we don't know what's going to happen to the child, why not do what we can to save it?

Do hospitals keep people on life support for 6 months to harvest organs?

Hours or maybe a day or so…different story completely.

I’ve never heard tell of any hospital keeping a brain dead person on life support for 6 months for organ harvesting, can you point me to that?



And…to be clear…if her family and/or the boyfriend WANTED her body to be kept alive for the sake of the fetus? I’d say yes…follow their wishes.

But they don’t have a voice in this.

THAT is the problem. I’d respect whatever choice THEY made either way and would defend their right to make it.

This? This is just sick.

 

[Gordy327]

No. According to the new Georgia law, the state can disregard the living will of a pregnant person in order to use the corpse to continue growing the fetus to a point where it can be born alive.

i was referring to if the woman gad wishes or not. But yes, in draconian states, one's medical wishes mean nothing and is at the mercy of the state. How people are not concerned about the state having such power over an individual is mind boggling.

Apparently, perhaps 20 or so states have this same type of law. So even if you leave an official living will or appoint a person to have authority to pull the plug on medical technology to keep you alive, the state can override your will and that person's will, too.

Even more concerning. Especially where individual rights, liberties, or autonomy or the lack thereof us concerned.

This is about state control of the pregnant woman's corpse.

Exactly, while ignoring the wishes of next of kin.