It is the kind of headline that stuns and guts you all at once.
Adriana Smith, a 31-year-old nurse and mother-to-be, was declared brain-dead in February. But due to Georgia’s draconian abortion laws, her body was forcibly kept alive for months, not to save her, but to sustain her unborn child.
Now, her baby has been born prematurely, weighing just 1lb 13oz, fighting for his life in a neonatal intensive care unit. And Adriana, who never got a say in the matter, will be taken off life support on Tuesday.
Pop star Olivia Rodrigo, a vocal advocate for reproductive rights, broke her silence this week in a blistering condemnation of the state’s abortion law.
“So disgusting and so disturbing. Adriana Smith deserved better,” Rodrigo said on her Instagram story, echoing a national swell of grief and fury.
A Life Hijacked by Law
Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, is now tasked with mourning a daughter who was denied the right to die with dignity. “I’m her mother. I shouldn’t be burying my daughter. My daughter should be burying me,” she told local outlet 11 Alive, her voice cracked with anguish.
According to Ms. Newkirk, Adriana was initially hospitalized for severe headaches and discharged with medication. She returned the next day, gasping for air. Blood clots had formed in her brain. She was declared brain-dead shortly thereafter.
Yet instead of allowing the family to say goodbye, Emory University Hospital refused to remove her from life support. Doctors cited Georgia’s near-total abortion ban, signed into law by Republican Governor Brian Kemp in 2019 and activated after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The law prohibits abortion after cardiac activity is detected, approximately six weeks into pregnancy, effectively stripping families like Adriana’s of agency in catastrophic cases.
“The decision to keep her on life support should have been left up to the family,” Newkirk said in May. “That was our daughter. This wasn’t some political spectacle. This was a human life being treated like an incubator.”
A Premature Baby and an Unimaginable Aftermath
The child, named Chance, was delivered via emergency C-section this past Friday. He is now battling for survival in the NICU. His condition remains fragile. Doctors have warned that Chance may face lifelong health challenges, including potential blindness, mobility impairment, or worse, stemming from the traumatic circumstances of his birth.
“He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him,” Newkirk said through tears.
Adriana will be removed from life support this week, months after her brain activity ceased. Her body, sustained only to prolong her pregnancy, will finally be allowed to rest.
Reproductive Rights Advocates Are Outraged
Rodrigo’s comment joins a rising chorus of activists, celebrities, and lawmakers slamming the Georgia law as inhumane, unethical, and medically negligent. Legal experts say the policy violates basic bioethical standards by overriding a family’s medical consent in order to comply with politically imposed fetal protection mandates.
“Adriana Smith wasn’t given a choice. Her mother wasn’t given a choice. This is not freedom. This is cruelty dressed up as morality,” said Dr. Janice Cole, an OB-GYN and reproductive rights advocate based in Atlanta.
Critics argue the law treats women not as patients, but as vessels, denying them bodily autonomy even in death.
Georgia’s Brutal Legal Legacy
Georgia’s abortion restrictions are among the harshest in the country. Though initially blocked in courts, the state’s six-week ban took effect after the fall of Roe. The law makes no explicit exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies, nonviable pregnancies, or cases where the pregnant person is already deceased.
And because cardiac activity can technically be detected before many women even know they’re pregnant, it creates a nightmare scenario: families forced to watch a loved one’s body used against their wishes, an unthinkable dystopia now very real for the Smiths.
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