Funeral plans announced for brain-dead Georgia mother
Adriana Smith. Photo courtesy of GoFundMe
ATLANTA - Funeral plans are now in place for Adriana Smith, a Georgia woman who was declared brain-dead earlier this year but remained on life support long enough to deliver her baby—a case that has garnered national attention.
What we know:
According to a listing on a funeral home’s website, a Celebration of Life service will be held Saturday, June 28, at noon at Fairfield Baptist Church in Lithonia. She will then be interned at Hillandale Memorial Gardens in Lithonia.
Smith's family says she suffered a medical emergency in February while two months pregnant, which left her brain-dead. Doctors were able to sustain her on life support long enough to give her unborn child a chance at survival.
Her baby was reportedly delivered on June 13 and Smith was removed from life support on June 17. Smith would have celebrated her 32nd birthday on June 15. FOX 5 Atlanta has been unable to independently confirm these details because the family has not responded to requests for information.
What they're saying:
On June 17, Congresswoman Nikema Williams (GA-05) introduced a resolution with co-leads Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (CA-51) recognizing the "tragic and deeply disturbing case" of Smith.
According to a press release from Williams, Smith's son Change was born prematurely at 4:41 a.m. June 13 via emergency Cesarean section and weighed 1 pound, 13 ounces at birth. He is currently in a NICU.
The resolution calls for urgent legislative and policy changes to protect the rights, autonomy, and dignity of pregnant people — particularly Black women, who are disproportionately impacted by systemic medical neglect and restrictive anti-abortion laws.
The congresswomen say that Smith was not given adequate treatment and Georgia's LIFE Act and uncertainty surrounding fetal personhood laws resulted in Emory University Midtown Hospital maintaining Smith's bodily functions without family consent for several months until her child could be born.
The resolution urges government to:
- Repeal state laws that ban or criminalize abortion and abortion-related services;
- Repeal laws that exclude pregnant people from having their advance directives come into effect;
- Clarify how anti-abortion and fetal personhood laws should be interpreted in medical settings;
- Reaffirm and guarantee autonomy and dignity to pregnant people over their lives, well-being, and medical needs.
Although Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr says that nothing in the LIFE Act explicitly mandates keeping a brain-dead patient on life support, the lack of a formal legal opinion of prosecutorial guidance leaves families and doctors in limbo, according to the congresswomen.
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