Woman declared legally dead is being kept alive due to state’s abortion laws

[Youstolemygoddamnhouse]

Anyone see this story?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/15/pregnant-georgia-woman-brain-dead-abortion-law

TLTR
US women is being kept alive on life support due to abortion laws. Woman was 9 weeks pregnant when she became brain dead. Family have no say in the matter and do not want this. The foetus if it survives may have life long health conditions and suffer from brain damage. Family are also having to pay for medical fees occurred and also for future birth fees.

I am being unreasonable to say WTF. Where is the outcry about this? This actually happened in an episode of The Handmaid’s tale.

YABU - this is the law, law needs to be upheld even after death
YANBU - WTF. Women are not safe even after death.

This happened in Ireland prior to the 8th being repealed. This is what happens unfortunately when abortion laws are archaic.

I’m weakly anti abortion but that is horrific. Poor woman, poor woman’s family.

Yes I saw a comment about it somewhere. From 2014? That the family had to go to court? What was the outcome as it didn’t say.

There is actually nothing pro life about this story, it’s sick and so fucking regressive. Mother should be allowed to pass away. It’s absurd.

The life support was turned off and if I remember correctly the family got a payout of over a million euro some years later. This was one of the many sad stories that helped repeal the 8th in the end. It's part of the reason why I get so angry when I see women on here celebrating or voting for people who are anti abortion 'because they know what a woman is'. Unless you have lived through strict abortion laws you have no idea the wide reaching effects are on women. It's terrifying living under these laws, knowing that the minute you become pregnant you lose all say in what happens to your body.

This is an obvious consequence of anti abortion rhetoric and legislation. Perhaps you shouldn't be in favour of denying women health care, dignity and respect.

I think that’s awful tbh. So after the trauma of losing someone you love 7 months later you have to face the possibility of having a profoundly disabled child who may not survive plus an enormous medical bill. Her poor child and parents as well.

I feel like the state should bear the cost if it’s insisting on keeping a brain dead woman alive.

I saw this on social media and couldn’t believe it.

If the foetus is a life then the family should be able to take out life insurance.

This is a case where nature should be allowed to take its course. I don't agree with euthanasia but I certainly don't agree with keeping people alive who are either brain dead or dying.

I could understand at 9 months pregnant but 9 weeks?? Crazy.

It's absolutely horrific, ghoulish and down to fucking men.

Utterly horrific, the poor family

Give over. I’m allowed an opinion.

It’s actually disgusting and makes me feel sick. This poor woman already had a son I believe too who will no doubt be so confused. . They say woman’s bodies aren’t incubators but it shows in this case that that’s what they believe we are. She and the baby should have been left to pass over peacefully.

It happens all over the world. In most places, including the UK, it would be only if doctors and relatives agreed though. The baby usually has a pretty good chance if whatever happened to mum doesn't mean baby is also injured (like oxygen deprivation). In this case, baby is seemingly pretty poorly, so its rather futile.

However, this isn't specifically an abortion issue - it's also about America's attitudes to death. In America, it's not uncommon for brain dead people to be kept alive for a prolonged period, even without a pregnancy. Some are kept alive on ventilators for years or decades, including children, the already elderly. If dignity means turning the machines off, dignity in death is routinely denied on the whims of grieving relatives.

Keeping this woman alive when her pregnancy was so early makes me uncomfortable, but it's for a limited duration, for a specific purpose designed to save a life. I am more horrified by a toddler being kept on life support until puberty and beyond, or a 80 year old with a stroke being kept on it for years.

If the Liberal left politicians have made themselves unsuitable for votes because they have annihilated women's rights in other ways...be angry at them! Not the women being forced to vote for what they feel is the lesser of 2 evils.

Even if someone is anti-abortion, how are they defining this as an abortion? It’s not as though the objective of removing treatment is to end the pregnancy - it’s to allow this poor woman’s body to die as she has long gone from it. Yes, it’s sad that her unborn child will also die - but if the medical expertise wasn’t there to keep bodies going artificially then she and her child would have died naturally months ago.

What happens if the family refuses to pay the medical costs?

Your opinion and the popularity of it in certain countries is why this is happening. You're allowed your opinion, we're all allowed to point out the consequences of it.

I agree. I hate that men are the ones making the laws and dictating what women should be allowed to do with their own bodies and I find it abhorrent that there are some women in power that support this. I seen a video of one of them MAGA podcast bros who opposes abortion and a women, who brought her child said she had been repeatedly raped by her father which resulted in pregnancy but choose to have the baby as she believed the foetus was a baby from conception or of words to similar effect. Everyone clapped and cheered

Why do people like you refuse to hold the political right accountable for their own choices? Are they they so weak and inept that you need to blame the liberal left who have not implemented these abortion laws?

There is no way the legislators of these types of laws are the “lesser of two evils” when it comes to women’s rights. The maternal death rates have also spiked in states with anti-abortion laws.

That is a really good question. I honestly don’t know. They might not release her body when she does pass, hence no funeral? But really good question.

It's part of the reason why I get so angry when I see women on here celebrating or voting for people who are anti abortion 'because they know what a woman is'.

Mumsnet is a UK based site. Very few posters on here vote in US elections, and there is no significant anti abortion movement in the UK.

For what it's worth, I think "knowing what a woman is" and believing women should have sex based rights are very closely connected. The US is a country where mainstream "feminism" believes that it is not necessary to even have a word for female people and that anyone who thinks we do need one (and that male people cannot be women) is transphobic. It's also a country where feminism has failed; where women already had fewer rights than anywhere else in the developed world and things are going backwards.

Compare and contrast with the UK, where women have comprehensive rights not to be discriminated against on grounds of their sex, the right to a year's maternity leave (even if it isn't all paid), free maternity care and some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world. We also have a strong core of left wing feminists who are saying "hell no" to all the gender ideology bullshit.

These things are not unconnected.

Neither is the fact that Ireland has wrestled itself free from the Catholic Church and immediately and enthusiastically embraced gender ideology. They've just swapped one patriarchal religion for another.

Actually I’m not sure I’ve ever told anyone in real life that abortion saddens me and I only mentioned it here in the context of finding this utterly horrific. I’m certainly not marching or petitioning.

Why do people like you not see that the left are entirely to blame for this in the west?

Women had abortion rights and autonomy over their wombs.

Then the left decided that women couldn't have autonomy over the rest of their bodies when they decide on matters of privacy.

The left should have held the line on sex based protections.

They failed and the right got a way in.