Real life handmaids tale: Adriana Smith

I didn't dare do an internet search, but do hope dispite his start that he is healthy.

And although not mentioned, huge praise to his grandmother who it seems has taken on his care and that of his older brother.

A new emotional update issued last month on 19 February confirmed that after months in the NIC unit, the little one has come home and met his big brother, but is still on oxygen.

Adriana's mother wrote: "First of all, I want to tell everyone thank you for your continued support and prayers. I have an announcement to make, look who's home.

"Chance is home doing well, still on oxygen. I won't go into details, but keep praying chase was so happy to see chance it made me cry. I'm your big brother, Adriana Smith 2 sons."

She also shared pictures of baby Chance with his big brother, Chase, Adriana's first-born son, who is reportedly seven-years-old.

Then one day later, on 20 February, Chance's grandmother shared another sweet picture of him, alongside the caption: "He's a pleasant baby and happy look at that smile."

Full article here https://www.tyla.com/news/adriana-smith-brain-dead-delivered-baby-chance-update-199038-20260305

Horrific

God it’s so cruel. He is 6 months?! Is that 3 months adjusted? Well enough to keep alive. Not well enough to live.

It’s awful to think of these things but if it was my baby and he was going to struggle continuously and have no quality of life I would rather he has peace with me in heaven.

I cannot believe they have put this baby through this.

This news story has a bit more detail than the DM report.
https://people.com/georgia-baby-adriana-smith-brain-dead-hospitalized-11861999

Good! Can’t be mentioned too often.

This was mentioned earliet in the thread and in the article.

If you want to contribute to support this family, there are ways. Unfortunately, because it’s not a registered charity, Mumsnet understandably can’t be seen to endorse it.

Baby born to brain-dead Georgia woman forced to carry birth to term remains seriously-ill - and anti-abortion state isn't helping pay for his treatment
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15349091/Georgia-Adriana-Smith-brain-dead-birth-baby-sick.html

Sorry about shouty headline, but only DM seems to have reported on this up date.

I'm pretty pro life in terms of wanting restrictions on demand (not being 1st trimester basically), but this is barbaric. What's the actual point?

Presumably if the baby is post visibility it'll be delivered not aborted and if pre viability then baby will usually die if mum does, so who is gaining from this? Either just baby dies or baby and mum dies. There's zero logic here just more death.

Madness

This is Project 2025 made manifest. Those who desire to control others are driven to do so with evangelical intensity and fervour.

Says it all, really: in Trump-world, the potential baby matters more than the mother.

Who is already alive and might well have other children who need her.

Ultimately, women like Adriana Smith and their fetuses are inseparable and persist in a technologically defined state of in-betweenness. I’d argue that postmortem pregnancies, therefore, need new bioethical standards that center women’s beliefs about their bodies and a dignified death. This might involve recognizing pregnancy’s unique ambiguities in advance directives, questioning default treatment pathways that may require harm to be done to one in order to save another, or considering multiple definitions of clinical and legal death.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/adriana-smith-brain-dead-abortion-ethics-b2780473.html

Funeral held for Georgia woman kept on life support until baby could be delivered: ‘Adriana’s voice will be heard’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/adriana-smith-georgia-brain-dead-abortion-laws-b2778956.html

How will the child feel if they live to have the capacity to understand how they were incubated?
At some point the information will come out and could be very traumatising for the child.

Such a sad story with no winners.

That’s a backward step.

Not forgetting (somebody posted the links earlier in this thread) very few babies born to a woman kept alive by medical intervention, survive.

4 June 2025
The Trump administration has announced that it is revoking guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions to women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition.
https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2025/06/trump-administration-rescinds-guidance-requiring-emergency-abortions-for-hospitals.html

Your right. I am not blaming the doctors. However people should just stand up and say no more. Fine you don’t want to lose your job / your liberty. But I hope there are some out there that are in trusted groups and being creative to give women dignified appropriate healthcare. If your out there and doing this and somehow read this; know women all over the world are behind you and forever grateful for the risks you are taking in standing silently against this US regime

Poor child, what a grotesque thing to find out, that you had lived inside your mother’s deteriorating corpse for however many weeks.

They have used this child and mother as an experiment.

It isn't an "experiment".

It is the consequence of medical professionals being made to behave in a way they wouldn't choose to because politicians have created a law that means there is every possibility they would have face criminal charges for not "saving" the baby.

Purely based on if a heartbeat can be heard then the baby cant be aborted.

Quote: "A heartbeat bill bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which may be as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy."

Yes I’d assume the doctors felt like they had no choice. Maybe her waters broke, or she deteriorated, or the baby showed signs of distress. I assume (but not sure?) that the doctors were not the ones who pushed to keep her on life support, but I also imagine that delivering an extremely premature baby is not what they wanted.