The pregnancy of a dead woman raises questions on the law on the abortion of Georgia: NPR

Adriana Smith, a 30 -year -old nurse, was about nine weeks pregnant in February when the doctors said her dead brain after undergoing medical emergency.

But Smith's mother, April Newkirk, Tell at the Atlanta Wxia television station That doctors at Emory University Hospital have kept its organs that have been operating since then until the fetus can be delivered, citing the Georgia law prohibiting most abortions after fetal heart activity can be detected, about six weeks of pregnancy.

Smith is now about 22 weeks after pregnancy and has been in effect for more than 90 days.

“My grandson may be blind, may not be able to walk, we do not know if he will live once she will have it,” Newkirk told Wxia last week. “And I am not saying that we would have chosen to terminate her pregnancy. What I say is that we should have had the choice.”

Sparks Case Legal Questions

The senator of the Democratic State Nabilah Islam Parkes wrote a letter to the Georgia Republican Attorney General, Chris Carr, requesting clarity on the way in which the law on the abortion of Georgia should be applied in this context.

“Let me be clear: it is a grotesque distortion of medical ethics and human decency,” wrote Islam Parkes. “That any law in Georgia can be interpreted as requiring that the body of a dead woman of the brain be artificially maintained as a fetal incubator is not only medically unhealthy – he is inhuman.”

The law, known as Life Act, was narrowly adopted and signed by Governor Brian Kemp in 2019, but was not in force until the United States Supreme Court has reversed Roe vs Wade In 2022. A judicial dispute of the Act respecting the abortion in Georgia always spawns a way before the state courts.

“There is nothing in the law on life which obliges health professionals to keep a woman in life after brain death,” replied in a statement. “The suppression of life is not an action in order to terminate a pregnancy.”

Emory Healthcare seems to have concluded a different conclusion. The hospital did not address the legal opinion of the Attorney General and did not respond to the requests for repeated comments, but the health system provided a declaration at several points of sale last week.

“Emory Healthcare uses a consensus of clinical experts, medical literature and legal advice to support our providers because they make individualized treatment recommendations in accordance with Georgia abortion laws and all other applicable laws,” wrote the health system. “Our main priorities continue to be the safety and well-being of the patients we serve.”

Mary Ziegler, professor of law at the University of California-Davis, says that this disconnection is not uncommon in the postDeer The ERA, as medical providers of states with restrictive abortion laws, has become more opposed to risks. The law of the law can bear criminal sanctions in many states.

“This scenario in Georgia at the moment is an example when you have the attorney general who says:” No problem, go ahead “, and you have doctors and their lawyers who read the law and say:” We are not so sure, “says Ziegler.

Ziegler also underlined two other black women in Georgia, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, whose death drew national attention. Propuplica reported Last year, a panel of state ruled on his avoidable death and probably the result of slow or not willing doctors to provide abortion care due to the Georgia law. The best Republicans in Georgia have challenged if the state abortion law played a role.

The cases also highlighted Georgia maternal mortality crisis affecting black women disproportionately.

Debate on personality

In the case of Adriana Smith, Ziegler says that one of the reasons why Emory could interpret the law of Georgia in this way is due to the provision of the abortion law establishing what is called “fetal personality”.

Fetal personality is the idea that embryos and fetus are people and have legal rights. In Georgia, for example, residents can claim a fetus according to state taxes.

Ziegler, author of book Personality, the new civil war on reproduction, said that the establishment of fetal personality has has long been a goal anti-abortion movement.

The senator of the republican state Ed Setzler, who sponsored the law on the abortion of Georgia in 2019, said in a statement that he thought that EMORY correctly interprets the law.

“I think it is quite suitable for the hospital to do what it can to save the child's life,” Setzler wrote in a statement in the AP. “I think it is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital acts appropriately.”

After the fall of Roe c. WadeThe existing laws of the personality of the States could be applied, which has caused consequences, both planned and involuntary, as in the case in Georgia. Ziegler says that the debate could open a range of new legal issues for areas such as in vitro fertilization, census or child alimony.

As these cases stimulate more judicial disputes, the problem could Finally land at the Supreme Court of the United States.