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

[Metric Mouse]

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

Well then the hospital is just keeping her alive until they decide?

That's nice. Can't fault them for that.

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

Neither do the dead.

But a fetus can still be saved.

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

Yes. That's why people struggle in stupid states like California. Imagine being charged with murder for killing a fetus because someone stabbed a mother or pushed her down the stairs or whatever. How insane must that be?

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

It's not alive... how can it "survive"?

That occurs when birth is already in process.

Sure... the birth of a fetus. Which has no rights and isn't a person. But still hospitals do it. Not in other countries; only in this one.

 

[Hatuey]

They aren't "keeping her alive." She officially died three months ago. The brain-dead body is an actual corpse.

Appreciate it!
Agreed, this is ****ing morbid.

 

[Metric Mouse]

My understanding is that they, like the next of kin in the Texas case, did so.

I had not read that they objected and wanted to terminate the pregnancy.

Do you have a link that reports this?

 

[uptower]

Brain dead law too

 

[choiceone]

Correct. I don't know. Which is why I only stated a possibility. Every woman, every circumstance is different. As I said.

Yes, the state is making the decision. As I said.

Neither of us knows what choice she would have made, correct.

When did I say my possible choice counts? As I've said quite a few times now, it actually doesn't.

Your assertion is that what should be done is what you personally want done, full stop.

No, this isn't really true. We may not know what choice she would have made when she was alive, as we don't know whether or not she had expressed her living will.

It's reasonably clear that, if she had known she was going to die, in the absence of a written living will, she would have preferred to have her mom or boyfriend make the choice.

The hospital doctors told the mother that they were forced to do this because of the state law, and the mother said that she had to let this happen because they were forced to do it. That doesn't sound as if the mother or boyfriend would have made this choice, or the doctors would have done so.

It sounds exactly like the state forcing upon doctors, family members, and fathers a choice they wouldn't have made, so it's quite unlikely that she would have made this choice, either. It's all about state control.

You're more knowledgeable than a stranger, you know what's best for women, women and families should do what you've decided.

The mask has fallen all the way off. And it's a clown mask. I'm not really seeing the difference in your attitude and GA's, TBS. Both of you know better than anyone involved what should or shouldn't be done with a woman's body.

 

[Ethel2]

Hey @Bullseye , what would make you justify keeping a braindead woman alive as long as she is pregnant?

Come out with it already.

So basically the family wants an abortion. That’s what should happen then-but abortions are illegal in Georgia. I am not sure how far along she is but if she’s at least 24 weeks and the baby is apparently healthy (I read it isn’t) and the family wants the baby then I can understand the decision. Otherwise it’s sorta disgusting.

 

[Hatuey]

So basically the family wants an abortion.

Brah, she is dead and they are using her corpse as a harvesting pod.

 

[choiceone]

I had not read that they objected and wanted to terminate the pregnancy.

Do you have a link that reports this?

The articles I've read state that the mother said the hospital doctors said they were forced to do this to comply with the law, so the mother had to allow it. Emphasis on force and must/had to. It sure sounds like the mother and boyfriend, and even the doctors, would have not made this choice.

And I recall the Texas case, where this situation was forced on the next of kin - same kind of case. Both cases sound very different from the reported Michigan case where the mother wanted the doctors to save the fetus so it could be born.

But there are actually great differences here. In the Michigan case, it was a matter of days or maybe a couple of weeks. Here, we're talking about three months. It's totally outrageous.

 

[EnchantedMuggle]

So basically the family wants an abortion. That’s what should happen then-but abortions are illegal in Georgia. I am not sure how far along she is but if she’s at least 24 weeks and the baby is apparently healthy (I read it isn’t) and the family wants the baby then I can understand the decision. Otherwise it’s sorta disgusting.

I believe what they want is to let this woman go. Not to have her undergo an abortion. Unless I'm misunderstanding the way you put that.

At this point the fetus is what, 20 weeks old? So it's more likely it would die than survive if they (eughhhhh this is getting morbid) say, removed the fetus immediately stopping life support. But it's not guaranteed it would die.

Now...there's no saying how the child would fare if born at this state and hooked up to a million machines (though there are odds and percentages of potential issues), but this is something that will change week by week anyway and already has. If she had been let go 3 months ago there would be no such dilemma.

If this is dragged out another 4 weeks or so odds start going up more and more for survival and then for survival with fewer potential for catastrophic issues but the potential for catastrophic events, like brain bleeds, is still going to be there. I'm guessing this will go on and on until she is in fact at or near term.

Now the family is likely forced into pressing a lawsuit depending on how badly this poor child could be ****ed up from all this....

It is a mess.

 

[choiceone]

So basically the family wants an abortion. That’s what should happen then-but abortions are illegal in Georgia. I am not sure how far along she is but if she’s at least 24 weeks and the baby is apparently healthy (I read it isn’t) and the family wants the baby then I can understand the decision. Otherwise it’s sorta disgusting.

She was about 9 weeks or so when she died. It's been three months. Nobody wanted an abortion. If they had not artificially circulated her blood and oxygenated it and infused nutrients, when she died, the fetus would have died along with all the rest of her body.

I read that, in the other cases like this of keeping the blood artificially circulating oxygen and nutrients, that only about a third result in a live birth,. And in no other case did they attempt this at such an early time in the pregnancy. So it would be far more likely that there would be health problems in a case like this.

The family appears not to have wanted this. And the expense of it is actually staggering. GA should be forced to pay for the whole thing.

 

[choiceone]

I believe what they want is to let this woman go. Not to have her undergo an abortion. Unless I'm misunderstanding the way you put that.

At this point the fetus is what, 20 weeks old? So it's more likely it would die than survive if they (eughhhhh this is getting morbid) say, removed the fetus immediately stopping life support. But it's not guaranteed it would die.

Now...there's no saying how the child would fare if born at this state and hooked up to a million machines (though there are odds and percentages of potential issues), but this is something that will change week by week anyway and already has. If she had been let go 3 months ago there would be no such dilemma.

If this is dragged out another 4 weeks or so odds start going up more and more for survival and then for survival with fewer potential for catastrophic issues but the potential for catastrophic events, like brain bleeds, is still going to be there. I'm guessing this will go on and on until she is in fact at or near term.

Now the family is likely forced into pressing a lawsuit depending on how badly this poor child could be ****ed up from all this....

It is a mess.

At twenty weeks the fetus would die if removed. The earliest removal of a fetus where it lived so far has been twenty-one weeks and one day, and the second was twenty-one weeks and six days. And it isn't till 22 weeks that most doctors consider a fetus potentially medically viable. Before that, it's likely to be blind, deaf, having serious heart problems, etc.

But at twenty weeks, it can't even be removed - the skin will come off if touched. It can't live if removed at this point, because the lung sacs aren't developed enough. So they will probably have to do this for another month at least. The technique wasn't even developed for cases where the mother dies before twenty-two weeks, but to help more developed fetuses.

In the Texas case, some rather disgusting things had started happening to the woman's dead body as the process continued. I can't believe how ghoulish this is.

 

[choiceone]

What authority did I support? I was just making fun of a liberal's absurd sense of self-righteousness.

This isn't about self-righteousness. It's about the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

 

[Metric Mouse]

The articles I've read state that the mother said the hospital doctors said they were forced to do this to comply with the law, so the mother had to allow it. Emphasis on force and must/had to. It sure sounds like the mother and boyfriend, and even the doctors, would have not made this choice.

But all reporting says the boyfriend and family have not stated wishes...

I thought you had heard otherwise.

Seems like her fetus is being kept alive until someone makes a decision, which they haven't done... for some weird reason.

 

[EnchantedMuggle]

At twenty weeks the fetus would die if removed. The earliest removal of a fetus where it lived so far has been twenty-one weeks and one day, and the second was twenty-one weeks and six days. And it isn't till 22 weeks that most doctors consider a fetus potentially medically viable. Before that, it's likely to be blind, deaf, having serious heart problems, etc.

But at twenty weeks, it can't even be removed - the skin will come off if touched. It can't live if removed at this point, because the lung sacs aren't developed enough. So they will probably have to do this for another month at least. The technique wasn't even developed for cases where the mother dies before twenty-two weeks, but to help more developed fetuses.

In the Texas case, some rather disgusting things had started happening to the woman's dead body as the process continued. I can't believe how ghoulish this is.

ABC 7: Premature SoCal Baby Born the Size of a Soda Can Shows Miraculous Improvement

ABC 7 recently interviewed neonatologist Seth Langston, MD, about a premature baby who has been in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s for more than seven months.When Ellyannah Lopez was born at 20 weeks, she weighed less than a pound and was about the size...

www.cedars-sinai.org

But yes, despite this "miracle" story the potential for a whole host of issues is there, even if the child were to survive.

And yes, it's all quite ghoulish.

 

[choiceone]

Not the same thing at all. Stick to the topic. There is no way to slice this that is even consistent with the pro-choice position. Adriana Smith was legally and medically dead before she could make any choices about her pregnancy. The unborn child became a ward of the State the moment she died. Since when do pro-choice people believe that the choice is transferable, ie that somebody else can decide to kill her unborn child?

This is not quite true. We don't know whether or not she had made an official living will or had officially designated a specific person to make decisions in her stead regarding unusual medical efforts to keep her alive or to cause continuation of her pregnancy after her death.

It wouldn't matter if she had, because the GA law says that the state can override a living will or designated person's decision in the case of any pregnant woman in order to use her corpse to continue a pregnancy.

Traditionally, everyone had a right to have their living will respected with regard to treatment of their own living body or their corpse, or to have a designated executor carry out their orally expressed will or to make decisions regarding their living body or their corpse. That's why you have the right while living to make sure no one uses your bodily organs for transplants or cremates your corpse instead of burying it, or vice versa, etc.

I don't care whether GA pretends that a fetus is a person or not. No person has a right to use the woman's body even for its survival without her consent, and no person has a right to use it even for her child's survival without her consent. So it doesn't matter one bit whether the fetus is a person or not. Not even an adult who is your child has any right to your blood for a transfusion or your organ for a transplant even to save his/her life. That has been the case for as long as blood transfusions have been possible.

Letting an embryo or fetus die because the woman's body in which it is implanted dies is not killing it. The notion that the state has a right to use your body as an incubator without your consent is appalling. If this approach is kept up, we will have forced blood transfusion, forced organ donation, and ultimately forced insemination and state rape. To pretend otherwise is utter folly.

 

[Along Came Jones]

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

Most everything written in this thread is speculative. The more adroit postings are offered from personal experience, their knowledge or gleaned from their current reading about Adriana Smith. Some are merely repetitions of long held beliefs used over and over again in countless debates concerning abortion, choice or the lack of choice.

Even if Ms. Smith had a DNR or a medical proxy written and recorded, in Georgia in this circumstance, apparently it would mean nothing. Fear of running afoul of Georgia's Heartbeat Law her doctors compelled them to maintain her on life support to provide sustaining life for the fetus Georgia recognizes as a person.

Whether or not she had a DNR or a medical proxy or made known what she would prefer if she were placed on life support is simply asking for more information. You know, the whole story or as much of it as keyboard commandos can grab from second-hand reporting . . . and speculation. There's nobody here who has direct knowledge of anything.

Some posters commented as if Ms. Smith had a living will which the state overrode. That raised an interesting question. When can a state override a DNR? So far, I've yet to come up with an example. I did find a wide range of people who could in some jurisdictions do so. In Texas, a legal website claims, once declared nobody except the patient can rescind it. Another website claims in some instances families or doctors can do it. The most intriguing circumstance was in cases where a suicide attempt is suspected. But so far, no mention of state intervention.

 

[ClaraD]

Im guessing there's more to story.

Nope. Im here in Georgia. She’s pregnant and the pregnancy is not even at viability yet. The family, doctors everyone say shut down the machines.
She’s dead, let her die and take the non viable pregnancy with her…I say non viable for 2 reasons these pregnancies never have a good outcome and 2 its early in the pregnancy

 

[ClaraD]

You might be struck by lightning or hit by a bus tomorrow. Is it “pointless” for you to be alive?

She’s brain dead…she isn’t alive, she’s dead a machine is running her body, that’s it. If Im brain dead do not ****ing put me on a machine

 

[Cosmo]

This is not quite true. We don't know whether or not she had made an official living will or had officially designated a specific person to make decisions in her stead regarding unusual medical efforts to keep her alive or to cause continuation of her pregnancy after her death.

It wouldn't matter if she had, because the GA law says that the state can override a living will or designated person's decision in the case of any pregnant woman in order to use her corpse to continue a pregnancy.

Traditionally, everyone had a right to have their living will respected with regard to treatment of their own living body or their corpse, or to have a designated executor carry out their orally expressed will or to make decisions regarding their living body or their corpse. That's why you have the right while living to make sure no one uses your bodily organs for transplants or cremates your corpse instead of burying it, or vice versa, etc.

I don't care whether GA pretends that a fetus is a person or not. No person has a right to use the woman's body even for its survival without her consent, and no person has a right to use it even for her child's survival without her consent. So it doesn't matter one bit whether the fetus is a person or not. Not even an adult who is your child has any right to your blood for a transfusion or your organ for a transplant even to save his/her life. That has been the case for as long as blood transfusions have been possible.

Letting an embryo or fetus die because the woman's body in which it is implanted dies is not killing it. The notion that the state has a right to use your body as an incubator without your consent is appalling. If this approach is kept up, we will have forced blood transfusion, forced organ donation, and ultimately forced insemination and state rape. To pretend otherwise is utter folly.

ROFL! First of all, your slippery slope nonsense is ridiculous. You have demonstrated no consistency between the actual events and your absurd ramblings at the end of your post here.

Secondly, she was literally pregnant immediately before her medical problem. And here comes the left with Dr. Kevorkian in tow, absolutely certain how to do right by her the moment she can't speak for herself. Who determined her will was to have her and her baby destroyed? Because that's the opposite of what she was doing right before she fell into a coma.

 

[SavannahMann]

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

A hospital is using a breathing tube and other measures to keep a brain-dead Georgia woman's body functioning because she is pregnant

abcnews.go.com

A hospital is using a breathing tube and other measures to keep a brain-dead Georgia woman's body functioning because she is pregnant
ATLANTA -- A pregnant woman in Georgia was declared brain-dead after a medical emergency and has been kept on life support for three months by doctors to allow enough time for the baby to be born and comply with Georgia’s strict anti-abortion law, family members say.

The GOP just views women as inccubators. Lets force a brain dead woman to give birth to a child that will grow up without a mother. Bang up job anti science religious extremists.

The GOP is all about forced birth, they're terrible people and extremists. Controlling someone's body like this even in their death is fascist as ****.

Hey, if the State wants this they can pay for it.

 

[Gordy327]

Most everything written in this thread is speculative. The more adroit postings are offered from personal experience, their knowledge or gleaned from their current reading about Adriana Smith. Some are merely repetitions of long held beliefs used over and over again in countless debates concerning abortion, choice or the lack of choice.

Even if Ms. Smith had a DNR or a medical proxy written and recorded, in Georgia in this circumstance, apparently it would mean nothing. Fear of running afoul of Georgia's Heartbeat Law her doctors compelled them to maintain her on life support to provide sustaining life for the fetus Georgia recognizes as a person.

Whether or not she had a DNR or a medical proxy or made known what she would prefer if she were placed on life support is simply asking for more information. You know, the whole story or as much of it as keyboard commandos can grab from second-hand reporting . . . and speculation. There's nobody here who has direct knowledge of anything.

Some posters commented as if Ms. Smith had a living will which the state overrode. That raised an interesting question. When can a state override a DNR? So far, I've yet to come up with an example. I did find a wide range of people who could in some jurisdictions do so. In Texas, a legal website claims, once declared nobody except the patient can rescind it. Another website claims in some instances families or doctors can do it. The most intriguing circumstance was in cases where a suicide attempt is suspected. But so far, no mention of state intervention.

That is what is concerning, the state already made the decision for a patient or next of kin, regardless of their wishes or position in the matter. Basically the state is saying your medical decisions or condition does not matter.

 

[Gordy327]

Well then the hospital is just keeping her alive until they decide?

That's nice. Can't fault them for that.

Except the state doesn't care what they decide. The state effectively decided for them.

Neither do the dead.
But a fetus can still be saved.

Then the decision should fall to the next of kin.

Yes. That's why people struggle in stupid states like California. Imagine being charged with murder for killing a fetus because someone stabbed a mother or pushed her down the stairs or whatever. How insane must that be?

Yes, it is insane. There is no legal basis for such a charge or laws.

It's not alive... how can it "survive"?

Who said the fetus wasn't alive? That's not the issue.

Sure... the birth of a fetus. Which has no rights and isn't a person. But still hospitals do it. Not in other countries; only in this one.

At birth, it is a neonate and a legal person. Not before. The birthing process also affects the woman's health and well being.

 

[BirdinHand]

What hogwash. Adriana Smith is legally and medically dead. She no longer exists as a person or anything else for that matter. The unborn child does exist and whether you regard the 21-week unborn child as a current person or not the fact remains that the child is the only entity coming out the other side of this as a person.

When she died, the fetus was 8-9 weeks gestation.

A cadaver is not a person. It has no rights.

Apparently, her family also lost their right to make end of life decisions regarding her.

The unborn child became a ward of the State the moment she died

Immediately disappearing any rights the father of the fetus has? And the surviving family of the fetus has?

I’m presuming the state will pay all the bills then also since the state has forced this decision?

What about all the medical bills IF the fetus survives to term and is born alive? The state paying those also?

How about the therapy bills for the 5 year old living child who doesn’t know Mom is dead and has been under the impression Mom is sleeping for the past 90+ days? Who will pay those?

The trauma this family is suffering from having no choice in this matter? Who takes responsibility for that?

Who determined her will was to have her and her baby destroyed? Because that's the opposite of what she was doing right before she fell into a coma

She didn’t fall into a coma - she is dead.

 

[Along Came Jones]

That is what is concerning, the state already made the decision for a patient or next of kin, regardless of their wishes or position in the matter. Basically the state is saying your medical decisions or condition does not matter.

Actually, the state has been silent. I've found no reporting that a Georgia official intervened in a manner similar to how Texas AG Paxton intervened in the infamous Cox emergency abortion case. Paxton's threat was overt. Georgia's intimidation was the physician/hospital's fear they might be prosecuted if they removed Ms. Smith from life support.

One benefit I derive from these contentious threads are the questions the posters inspire. Here's one I'm pursuing now. Did Paxton's overt legal intimidation lead to a broadly bipartisan revision of law pertaining to emergency abortions? I think it did. After a bit more reflection I think I might drop into the Abortion forum to start a thread on how and why.

 

[Gordy327]

Actually, the state has been silent. I've found no reporting that a Georgia official intervened in a manner similar to how Texas AG Paxton intervened in the infamous Cox emergency abortion case. Paxton's threat was overt. Georgia's intimidation was the physician/hospital's fear they might be prosecuted if they removed Ms. Smith from life support.

One benefit I derive from these contentious threads are the questions the posters inspire. Here's one I'm pursuing now. Did Paxton's overt legal intimidation lead to a broadly bipartisan revision of law pertaining to emergency abortions? I think it did. After a bit more reflection I think I might drop into the Abortion forum to start a thread on how and why.

The state doesn't have to say anything. It's anti abortion laws already have and it takes away the decision from the kin.