A pregnant woman who was kept alive by doctors for months due to a draconian law has finally given birth, despite being brain-dead.
Adriana Smith, 30, was around nine weeks pregnant in February when she began experiencing intense headaches, which her local hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, brushed off.
Just a day later, Smith was found gurgling and struggling to breathe by her boyfriend and rushed to the hospital, where she was declared brain dead.
But a ban on abortions after six weeks of gestation – only three weeks of pregnancy – meant Smith’s family was forced to keep her alive until the child could survive outside the womb.
After four months on life support, Adriana’s son, named Chance, was born prematurely and was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit.
The baby boy was diagnosed with hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain) a few months ago, but Adriana’s mum has told reporters her grandson is ‘okay’.
‘He’s just fighting. We want prayers for him,’ she said. ‘Right now, the journey is for baby Chance to survive. Whatever condition God allows him to come here in, we’re going to love him just the same.’
Adriana’s family will finally be able to lay her to rest. She leaves behind another son. Mum April previously said her grandson thought his mum was ‘sleeping’ when visiting her in hospital.
Access to safe abortions in the United States has become increasingly difficult as Republican lawmakers work to make the procedure illegal.
In late December, a US state introduced a bill allowing executions for abortions.
Republican lawmakers in South Carolina pushed the doctrine of ‘fetal personhood,’ which would grant fetuses at any stage of development the exact same legal rights and protections as people.
South Carolina currently has a six-week abortion ban in effect. If passed, this bill would effectively enact a total abortion ban.
This would make abortion at any stage of pregnancy equivalent to murder under state law, and a person who undergoes the procedure could face life in prison or the death penalty as a result.
It’s not all doom and gloom – in April, a federal judge ruled that Alabama’s attorney general can’t prosecute people who help women travel to other states to obtain abortions in a major win for women’s rights.
US District Judge Myron Thompson sided with an abortion fund and medical providers who sued Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall after he suggested they could face prosecution under ‘anti-conspiracy’ laws.
But the new ruling has found that any prosecutions against those who help women travel to get abortions in other states would violate the First Amendment and a person’s right to travel.
Mr Marshall said he would ‘look closely’ at whether facilitating out-of-state abortions is a violation of Alabama’s criminal conspiracy laws.
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