A new resolution in Georgia is calling for a law to be named after Adriana Smith, the pregnant woman kept on life support until her preborn son was old enough to be born safely. A state representative hopes to draft “Adriana’s Law” to prohibit hospitals from ignoring patients’ advance directives, instead giving control over medical decisions to a patient’s family.
What appears to be left out of the conversation, however, is that all signs indicate Smith didn’t have an advance directive.
Key Takeaways:
- Adriana Smith was pronounced brain dead at nine weeks pregnant, but Georgia’s Advance Directive for Health Care Act of 2007 had a two-part requirement regarding life support during pregnancy which was not met.
- Pro-abortion media outlets continue to claim she was kept on life support under the Georgia LIFE Act, which state officials have formally denied.
- Smith’s family said that while they wanted to be given a choice in the matter, they wanted Smith’s preborn son — Chance — to be given the opportunity to survive.
- Chance was born prematurely in June, and Smith was removed from life support shortly after.
- State Rep. Park Cannon has since introduced a resolution in honor of Smith, but is misrepresenting what actually happened.
The Details:
During Adriana Smith’s funeral, Georgia state representative Park Cannon introduced a House resolution calling for “Adriana’s Law,” which would ensure a patient’s advance directives are carried out without regard to whether the patient is pregnant.
“We believe bodily autonomy should be upheld in Georgia by enacting Adriana’s Law,” Cannon said at Smith’s funeral. “Which would affirm that individuals retain agency over their bodies and medical decisions even under restrictive fetal personhood regimes.”
READ: Adriana Smith’s baby has been born, but abortion apologists still want him to die
Abortion groups like SisterSong, Amplify Georgia, and Georgia NOW are already pushing for “Adriana’s Law” to be passed.
In an interview with Atlanta’s Capital B, Cannon said “Adriana’s Law” would outweigh the Georgia LIFE Act and ensure a patient’s advance directive cannot be ignored. “As a doula who is working in and out of Georgia hospitals, I can personally understand how families’ decision-making gets overshadowed by the climate of medical hostility in Georgia,” she said.
But then she said (emphases added):
The family has been very clear this entire time that because she’s a nurse and had an Advanced Medical Directive that they wanted her wishes honored.
However, because the hospital system has been in fear of retaliation by the state’s abortion ban, they did not honor those wishes.
Reality Check:
What Rep. Cannon got wrong…
- Adriana Smith was not kept on life support due to the Georgia LIFE Act. The Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Act of 2007 specifies that a pregnant woman cannot be withdrawn from life support unless 1) her preborn child is not yet considered viable, and 2) she has an advance directive in place requesting to be removed from life support.
- Adriana Smith was never reported as having an advance directive in place; her situation did not meet both criteria under the Advance Directive for Health Care Act. The family was certainly not “clear this entire time” that Smith had an advance directive stating that she wanted to be removed from life support. If she had one, then she would have met both criteria for removal from life support despite her pregnancy. And tellingly, media reports claimed Smith was being kept on life support “against her family’s wishes,” not against her own prior wishes as spelled out in an advance directive. If Smith had actually had an advance directive saying she wanted no life support, it seems unlikely that the worldwide media frenzy wouldn’t have made sure it was proverbially shouted from the rooftops.
Yet even the media claim about “her family’s wishes” wasn’t quite true. Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, publicly said she wished the family had been given the right to make medical decisions for Smith — but she also said she wanted Smith’s preborn son, whom the family had named Chance, to survive.
“I just want to be clear on something: we want her to have her baby. We want her life to continue through her children,” Newkirk said (emphasis added).
Wrong thinking
- Slamming “fetal personhood” when the family clearly valued Smith’s baby before his birth. Given the fact that Smith’s family wanted her baby boy to survive and had even named him before his birth, Rep. Cannon’s reference to “restrictive fetal personhood regimes” — at Smith’s funeral, no less, and while baby Chance had just begun fighting to survive and grow in the hospital NICU — is shockingly offensive.
- Did Smith have ‘bodily autonomy,’ or was she a ‘corpse’ in a “horror movie”? Media can’t decide. Rep. Cannon’s talk of “bodily autonomy” at Smith’s funeral is also unusual, given the repeated rhetoric published in media and on social media after the birth of Smith’s son, referring to Smith as a “corpse” and even a “rotting corpse” who was stuck in a “horror movie.” It’s quite the contradiction to act as if a woman concurrently 1) has bodily agency and 2) is nothing more than a dead body (the latter of which is impossible, since corpses can’t biologically sustain pregnancies). Yet, these were the conflicting media messages.
Does not apply
Georgia’s own attorney general made clear early on that Smith’s case had nothing to do with the LIFE Act, stating, “There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death.”
The media ignored this statement, continuing to blame the LIFE Act with zero proof that it was at fault. This propagandistic lie drowned out the truth.
Under the LIFE Act, abortion is defined 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…
A removal from life support is not the use, prescription, or administration of any substance, device, or anything else, nor is life support removed from a pregnant woman “with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.”
A simple reading of the LIFE Act should make clear that the law simply didn’t apply in Smith’s situation, but the additional statement from the state’s attorney general should have laid everything to rest, because — as Ballotpedia notes:
State attorneys general serve as chief legal advisers to state governments and citizens residing within their state. Nearly every state’s attorney general has the power to prosecute violations of state law and represent the state in legal disputes. They also influence a state’s approach to law enforcement, setting particular law enforcement priorities and focusing resources on those issues.
The mainstream media decided to plug its ears even though the chief legal adviser in Georgia who prosecutes violations of state law said the LIFE Act had nothing to do with the fact that Smith was kept on life support.
The Bottom Line:
Medical professionals in any state who may treat pregnant women and preborn children in any capacity should know what their state laws say in relation to their treatment. And those tasked with the care of patients on life support should be aware of their state’s advance directive laws.
Making sure a patient’s advance directive is honored is a worthy cause, but it’s not relevant in this particular case because all signs indicate that Smith did not have one.
Abortion activists appear to be exploiting Smith and her family to promote a culture of death agenda. Smith’s name was used without her consent to argue for the deaths of the preborn children of women facing diagnoses of brain death (which isn’t the same as actual, biological death).
Despite so much ugliness and exploitation, it is important to instead strive to honor the memory of a beautiful mother while we honor the life of her precious child. Both are irreplaceable.
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