Currently in Georgia, Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, is being kept on life support after a tragic medical emergency left her declared brain dead. The reason she’s being kept alive? Smith is pregnant, and as her mother told Atlanta news station 11Alive, the hospital is doing so to ensure the fetus continues to grow, in an effort to adhere to Georgia’s strict abortion laws.
Per AP News, Emory Healthcare, the organization behind the hospital where Smith is on life support, cannot release specific information on the case due to health care privacy laws. However, also per AP, the org did release a statement saying, “[We use] consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws. Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve.”
In Georgia, abortion is currently illegal after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which is typically around six weeks into a pregnancy. About three months ago, according to 11Alive, Smith was nine weeks pregnant when she woke up gasping for air after a bout of intense headaches. She rushed to the hospital, where medical professionals found blood clots in her brain. She was then declared brain-dead, meaning that she is legally dead, and yet she still remains on life support, now at about 21 weeks pregnant.
“They’re hoping to get the baby to at least 32 weeks,” Smith’s mom, April Newkirk, told 11Alive in a May 13 interview. “But every day that goes by, it’s more cost, more trauma, more questions … It’s torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there.” Newkirk also clarified in the interview, “I’m not saying that we would have chosen to terminate her pregnancy. What I’m saying is that we should have had a choice.”
As people across the country have learned about Smith, they have become saddened, shocked, and enraged, and many have taken to speaking out on social media to share their thoughts. And as is the case with most news stories surrounding reproductive rights, The Handmaid’s Tale is a huge part of the conversation. In case you somehow missed it, the classic novel by Margaret Atwood — and the wildly popular Hulu show based on the book — depicts a dystopian country called Gilead, where some women are turned into Handmaids and forced into a form of servitude in order to repopulate the country. The comparison of Smith’s story to The Handmaid’s Tale hits especially close to home. In Season 3 of the show, a pregnant Handmaid dies, and she is kept on life support in order for her fetus to grow to term and be delivered — essentially, she’s depicted as a human incubator to keep the fetus alive, even though her life already ended.
But while Smith’s story has harrowing parallels to something many of us have seen on TV, the constant discourse comparing this devastating real-life situation to a fictional plot line doesn’t sit right with me. Reducing Smith’s story to a pop-culture comparison, no matter how apt, takes away from the fact that this is a very real thing happening to a woman and her family. The aftermath won’t disappear after the credits roll — we can’t overlook the heartbreak and trauma many will feel for years to come.
Look, I get it: Instances of life imitating art happen around us in so many different ways, and often, these connections are meant to start conversations and inspire us to reflect on real-life scenarios. However, this case shouldn’t be the catalyst for yet another conversation about how we’re living in a real-life Handmaid’s Tale; it deserves to be discussed as the reality it is. Smith and her loved ones deserve at least that much.