USA – A baby born to a brain dead mother: this is the horror of abortion bans

Adriana Smith was legally dead for months, but kept on life support in Atlanta because she was pregnant

Moira Donegan
Tue 8 Jul 2025

On Friday 13 June, a baby was born in an Atlanta hospital to a woman who had been dead for four months. Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old Black nurse and mother, was declared brain dead in February after blood clots formed in her brain. Legally, and by all meaningful measures, she was dead then: the woman who loved her family, laughed with her friends, comforted her son, helped her colleagues and cared for her patients was gone then, and was never coming back.

But the state of Georgia, and the administrators of the hospital where she was declared dead, kept her corpse in a state of artificial animation for months. That’s because when Smith went to the hospital in February complaining of a headache, and later became unresponsive, she was about eight weeks pregnant. According to her family, doctors at Emory hospital, in Georgia, told the family that the state’s abortion ban required them to maintain the regimen that falsely animated their daughter’s corpse so that the fetus inside her could continue to grow.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/08/adriana-smith-atlanta-brain-dead-birth

08.07.2025

Opinion

Adriana Smith

Emory University hospital

Woman’s arrest after miscarriage in Georgia draws fear and anger

Experts say the arrest is part of a pattern of criminalizing pregnancy that has accelerated since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

April 5, 2025
By Bracey Harris

On March 20 in rural Georgia, an ambulance responded to an early morning 911 call about an unconscious, bleeding woman at an apartment. When first responders arrived, they determined that she’d had a miscarriage. That was only the start of her ordeal.

Selena Maria Chandler-Scott was transported to a hospital, but a witness reported that she had placed the fetal remains in a dumpster. When police investigated, they recovered the remains and Chandler-Scott was charged with concealing the death of another person and abandoning a dead body. The charges were ultimately dropped; an autopsy determined Chandler-Scott had had a “natural miscarriage“ at around 19 weeks and the fetus was nonviable.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgia-arrest-miscarriage-fetal-personhood-rcna199400

Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban, She Stayed at Home and Died

Candi Miller’s family said she didn't visit a doctor “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions.” Maternal health experts deemed her death preventable and blamed Georgia’s abortion ban.

by Kavitha Surana
Sept. 18, 2024

Candi Miller’s health was so fragile, doctors warned having another baby could kill her.

“They said it was going to be more painful and her body may not be able to withstand it,” her sister, Turiya Tomlin-Randall, told ProPublica.

But when the mother of three realized she had unintentionally gotten pregnant in the fall of 2022, Georgia’s new abortion ban gave her no choice. Although it made exceptions for acute, life-threatening emergencies, it didn’t account for chronic conditions, even those known to present lethal risks later in pregnancy.

Continued; https://www.propublica.org/article/candi-miller-abortion-ban-death-georgia

Georgia Supreme Court Allows Six-Week Abortion Ban to Remain in Effect as Legal Challenge Continues

October 24, 2023
ACLU
Case: SisterSong v. State of Georgia / Affiliate: ACLU of Georgia

ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court issued a ruling today that allows H.B. 481, a ban on abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy, to remain in effect. The court’s majority opinion disregards long-standing precedent that a law violating either the state or federal Constitution at the time of its enactment is void from the start under the Georgia Constitution. Georgia’s ban was blatantly unconstitutional when enacted in 2019 against the backdrop of Roe v. Wade and almost five decades of federal precedent, and therefore unenforceable, as the trial court found. But today’s ruling reversing the lower court’s decision concludes that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe last year effectively erased that history.

Continued: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/georgia-supreme-court-allows-six-week-abortion-ban-to-remain-in-effect-as-legal-challenge-continues

USA – She loved her baby. But at six months she needed an abortion.

BY ANITA CHABRIACOLUMNIST
JULY 27, 2023

The quiet told Michelle Mitchenor something was wrong. Feet up, belly exposed, the actress was in an Atlanta obstetrician’s office in 2022 for a routine ultrasound as she neared her fifth month of pregnancy.

But the technician wasn’t saying anything as she ran the probe across Mitchenor’s womb, sound waves bouncing off the fetus to create a fuzzy black-and-white image on the monitor.

What’s going on? Mitchenor remembers thinking. Why are you silent?

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-27/she-loved-her-baby-but-at-six-months-she-needed-an-abortion

27.07.2023

Commentary

bilateral multicystic dysplastic kidney

‘Abortion access will be restored in the US’

The people of Georgia have been subjected to a confusing legal battle that ultimately led to a six-week abortion ban. For some in the state, all hope is not lost

by Tina Vásquez
July 18th, 2023

Kwajelyn Jackson is known throughout the South—and increasingly, across the country—as one of the reproductive justice movement’s most powerful voices. She is the executive director of the Feminist Women’s Health Center (FWHC) in Atlanta, where she has been central to the fight against anti-abortion laws in the state.

Under Jackson’s leadership, FWHC has transformed into a multigenerational, multiracial organization and a clinic operationalizing reproductive justice as part of patient care. The work is not easy, especially in a state like Georgia, which has been subjected to a byzantine array of anti-abortion laws, court battles, and injunctions that confuse people about whether they can access abortion care.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2023/07/18/abortion-access-georgia-one-year-post-roe/

‘I don’t know if I’m going to make it’: With abortion drug’s future in limbo, Georgia couple shares their cautionary tale

By Elizabeth Cohen and Amanda Sealy, CNN
Fri May 26, 2023

Depending on the outcome of a federal lawsuit, more women having early miscarriages could end up like Melissa Novak: septic, in the hospital and needing emergency surgery to survive. “We didn’t know if she was going to live or die,” said Novak’s husband, Stewart Day.

Novak had a miscarriage in March and was prescribed only one of the pills in a two-pill combination approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for women in her situation. Although the medication she took, called misoprostol, can help a woman have a complete and safe miscarriage, it’s not approved by the FDA to do so, and studies show that it’s less effective than when used in combination with the second drug, mifepristone.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/health/georgia-medication-abortion-miscarriage/index.html

Judge overturns Georgia’s ban on abortion around 6 weeks

By SUDHIN THANAWALA
Nov 14, 2022

ATLANTA (AP) — A judge overturned Georgia’s ban on abortion starting around six weeks into a pregnancy, ruling Tuesday that it violated the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent when it was enacted three years ago and was therefore void.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s ruling took effect immediately statewide, though the state attorney general’s office said it filed an appeal. The ban had been in effect since July.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-government-and-politics-atlanta-58ba677dd47afad6d25d9887f17e8763

14.11.2022

Featured

News

American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia

Abortion access in two ‘stalwart’ states in the South a focus of post-Roe court fights

By Tierney Sneed and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Mon August 8, 2022

Just how far people in the South will have to travel to access abortion care will be defined by legal challenges unfolding in Louisiana and Georgia.

Almost every state in the Southeast bans the procedure or limits it to all but the earliest stages of pregnancy -- with laws that were allowed to go into effect with the Supreme Court's reversal this summer of Roe v. Wade. But abortion rights advocates are fighting in state court for orders blocking those restrictions.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/abortion-south-georgia-louisiana/index.html

Planned Parenthood Has Quietly Stopped Providing Abortions in Georgia and Alabama

Independent clinics have been "deeply impacted" by the move in a region with already dwindling access to reproductive health care.

By Susan Rinkunas
Apr 28, 2022

Planned Parenthood quietly stopped scheduling abortions this month at its clinics in Georgia and Alabama and canceled some existing appointments, due to what it said were staffing issues at its Southeast affiliate. The organization said the change is temporary, but did not say when it would resume care. In the meantime, the clinics are referring people to other providers.

“We have elected to scale back some of our services across the affiliate while we onboard new staff at our health centers and at the executive level,” the spokesperson said in response to questions from Jezebel. “This is a temporary change, and we expect to again be operating at full capacity by the end of the month.” There are two days left in the month and it does not appear that abortions will resume in that time frame.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/planned-parenthood-has-quietly-stopped-providing-aborti-1848856363