Brain-dead pregnant woman kept alive amid abortion law debate

The case of Adriana Smith, the woman whose family says she was declared brain-dead and placed on life support to save her pregnancy, has sparked new questions about the medical and legal effects of Georgia's abortion law.

Why it matters: The state's law prevents the termination of a pregnancy once fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks and before a person even knows they are pregnant.

Catch up quick: In February, Emory Healthcare doctors said Smith, a 30-year-old nurse, was hospitalized after experiencing headaches, according to a GoFundMe account created last week by her mother, April Newkirk.

• A CT scan found she had blood clots on her brain, 11 Alive reported last week.
• Newkirk said she gave the hospital approval to perform a procedure to relieve the pressure on her daughter's brain, the news station said.
• However, they determined Newkirk's daughter, a 30-year-old nurse, was brain-dead.
• The family was "given no choice to wait for months to find out [if] the baby will suffer" any complications," Newkirk said on the GoFundMe page.

What they're saying: Smith's case has sparked calls to revise or repeal Georgia's law over concerns that doctors might choose not to perform a medical procedure or abortion on a pregnant person out of fear they could face criminal charges.

• Democratic State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-Duluth) on Friday wrote a letter to Attorney General Chris Carr, stating Smith's case is a "grotesque distortion of medical ethics and human decency."
• "That any law in Georgia could be interpreted to require a brain-dead woman's body to be artificially maintained as a fetal incubator is not only medically unsound — it is inhumane," she said.

Yes, and: Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine professor Katherine Watson, who studies medical ethics, told Axios that removing medical technology from a brain-dead person does not fit the definition of abortion in Georgia's law.

• "In other words, this is not a case about an 'exception' to the law — it simply doesn't apply to taking Ms. Smith off the ventilator."

The other side: Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said as much.

• Medical workers are not required to keep a brain-dead person on life support, the AG's office said, and "[r]emoving life support is not an action 'with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.'"

What they're saying: Emory did not return Axios' request for comment. Newkirk did not respond to a message sent through GoFundMe.