Atlanta billboards call for 'justice' for Adriana Smith, mother of baby Chance

Digital billboards across Atlanta are calling for justice for Adriana Smith, the woman who was declared 'brain dead' one year ago and whose life was sustained artificially until her son could be born.

The 10 billboards honor her on the one-year anniversary of the tragic medical emergency she suffered, but they are also an effort to keep attention on her story and seek changes to certain laws in Georgia.

Key Takeaways:

• Ten billboards have been placed around Atlanta, Georgia to commemorate the death of Adriana Smith, a pregnant nurse who was declared brain dead and was kept on life support until her baby, Chance, could be delivered.

• Smith's mother, April Newkirk, wants to fight the state law that "give[s] fetuses rights" — preborn children like her own grandson, Chance, whose life was possibly spared thanks to a stringent advance directive law in Georgia.

• Newkirk also wants to change other laws, including protection for the parental rights of people like baby Chance's father, because he and Smith were not married.

The Details:

Smith's mother, April Newkirk, announced on Facebook, "February 9th 2026 is one year of the tragic loss of my daughter, Adriana Smith. There will be 10 billboards digital place through Atlanta, Georgia, so people don't forget her."

She added, "This is a very hard time for me and my family, and I just want to say thank you for all the prayers and the messages that you have sent. Please, please vote so no one else hurts. We need changes with the laws in Georgia."

The billboards call for "Justice for Adriana," and Newkirk's comments imply that changing the laws in Georgia is a means to securing that justice.

Fox 5 Atlanta claimed:

[Smith's] case became a focal point for critics and lawmakers alike, sparking intense debate over the need for legal clarification within the state's restrictive abortion and life-support statutes...

Beyond the legislative debate, the family has also faced legal hurdles regarding Smith's son; because she and the child's father were not married, he was forced to go to court to obtain full custody due to Georgia laws governing automatic parental rights.

It appears another of the "changes" Newkirk would like to see in Georgia state law is "Adriana's Law," House Resolution 522, which could propel both positive and negative change. It both "condemns the troublingly common experience that Black women face in medical settings of having their pain not given full credence or treatment...." but also "condemns giving fetuses rights and taking them away from pregnant people in our laws..." (emphasis added).

For months, the media incessantly insisted that "justice" for Adriana Smith would have been achieved by allowing her preborn son to die or be killed by induced abortion. Even after Chance was born prematurely, many people have said they believe it is worse for him to be alive than to be dead.

And now, his own grandmother wants to ensure that other babies just like him have their right to life explicitly ignored.

Real justice

Part of achieving real justice for Smith could be changing how patients are treated when they present with significant symptoms at a hospital, as Smith did.

Her head hurt so badly that she sought care at Northside Hospital, and as a registered nurse, it is unlikely that Smith went to the hospital without cause. She was very likely in extreme pain that required the evaluation of an emergency medical team.

However, Smith did not receive timely care; she was sent home with pain medication, leading to her worsening symptoms and ultimately, the loss of her life. It was only after she was brought back to the hospital the next morning, unconscious and clinging to life, that doctors ordered a CT scan revealing multiple blood clots in her brain.

“They [Northside Hospital] gave her some medication, but they didn’t do any tests. No CT scan,” said Newkirk. “If they had done that or kept her overnight, they would have caught it. It could have been prevented.”

Georgia's Advance Directive law

Smith was pronounced brain dead, but she was nine weeks pregnant; therefore, under the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Act of 2007, she was kept on life support until her son reached a later gestational age with a better chance of survival at birth. Under that law, removing a pregnant woman from life support is not legal in Georgia — unless her preborn child isn’t viable and the mother also has an advance directive that states her wishes to be withdrawn from life-sustaining measures. It does not appear that Smith had an advance directive in place. 

But pro-abortion influencers, activists, and media outlets repeated the false claim that the Georgia LIFE Act, which protects most preborn children from abortion, was forcing Smith to stay alive against her family's will.

Though her family said they wanted baby Chance to survive, they also said they wished they had the "choice" to disconnect Smith's life support and allow both her and her son to die. They also seemed to incorrectly blame the Georgia LIFE Act; however, removing a woman from life support does not fit the definition of abortion, which is defined by the Georgia LIFE Act as “the act of using, prescribing, or administering any instrument, substance, device, or other means with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy with knowledge that termination will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of an unborn child…”

The maternal mortality and morbidity crisis facing women, specifically Black women, is unacceptable in the current age of medicine, yet doctors continue to ignore their pain and their symptoms, presumably based on racism. This horrific mistreatment of Black women and their babies must end. However, killing the preborn children of Black women under the guise of health care will not save lives and will only cause more deaths.

Intentionally killing preborn children is not health care. When a pregnant woman faces a medical emergency and a pregnancy must end, the baby can be delivered, and doctors can work to save both lives. This is not an abortion.

The Bottom Line:

Changing the law to allow abortion in Georgia would not have saved Smith's life. What would have saved her life are doctors who cared enough to believe Smith's pain was severe, to trust that she wasn't making an unnecessary trip to the emergency room, and to take the extra step to run tests for serious conditions that would cause such an intense headache.

It's impossible to know if Smith would have wanted to fight to keep Chance alive, but because abortion has been promoted as a woman's right and preborn children have been denied their humanity and reduced to a "clump of cells," there is no respect for the love between a mother and child during pregnancy.

Abortion advocates pit mother against child as if they are in conflict with one another, instead of a deep bond, and as if the child is the mother's assailant rather than her precious child.