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.

almost worse is the only reason she IS brain dead is because of that pregnancy

She had horrific headaches and because of the heartbeat laws they wouldn't do lifesaving medical care, and a blood clot left her brain dead.

They killed her, then have left her dead body being kept artificially alive to incubate a baby.

It's beyond grotesque.

At least she’s oblivious to it all. It’s the family I feel sorry for.

I think they can be made bankrupt. I suspect there will be some sort of payment plan and she was a nurse ( at the hospital she is in) so will have some insurance.

I do think there is a legal arguement that the medical care is not for Adriana, but for the fetus. A child / disabled under 18 yo can have their medical care covered under Medicaid. It feels like a natural extension so if life begins at fetal heart beat perhaps medical bills can start being attributed at that point too?

I don't think it's possible to have a 100% stance on that issue if you have ever tried to apply reason to it. However, the poster may prove me wrong.

So do you only agree with the less than 1% of abortions where this is the case?

No, I am not the one with a 100% stance, you are. Can you answer my question first? Then I'll be happy to answer yours.

I don’t think that’s correct, she had headaches went to hospital they sent her away with medicine, didn’t do any tests/ scans.

Woke up her partner gasping for breath, he called 911. Ambulance to hospital, there they fix a ct scan and found blood clots, her mom is next of kin gave permission for surgery that wasn’t successful.

I think it’s common for A&E here too. I’ve been admitted to hospital a few days after attending A&E and being told nothing serious.

I think some posters are, understandably, reacting to this story emotionally; imagining their living child if they themselves were in a coma / brain dead.

This is a baby who if survives will never have known it's mother's voice or smell. The bump will never have been gently rocked by their mother's motions. It's all a bit Frankenstein tbh. Can you image trying to replicate the blood gases and hormone processes that happens during pregnancy; that's just the processes I can think of in the human body as I'm not a Doctor .

My dear sister was in a coma, brain dead and it was clear that her body was trying to die despite being on life support. She was not in a Disney Sleeping Beauty state of stasis. If she was heavily pregnant, then we might have considered allowing the baby to to be born while on life support but if she was at an early stage of pregnancy, as much as it pains me to say, I would have wanted the baby to slip away with her.

I feel so much for the family and I hope whatever happens they find peace. It's a horrible, sad and upsetting situation to face and I hate the religious / anti abortion arseholes who will probably never have to face being in this situation.

Also, what about a situation where a 13 year old is 100% going to die if she continues the pregnancy, but the baby has a 1% chance of survival. You are also, with your 100% anti abortion stance, against abortion in that case, so can you explain what happened in the 13 years of that girl's life that made her so much less valuable than a barely viable foetus?

It’s extremely hard to keep a brain dead person alive;they need an enormous amount of medication and other extremely invasive interventions; for example they cannot maintain their own blood pressure etc

It’s highly likely she could die before she even gets to a viable gestation from complications like organ failure and the amount of pressure on her body could cause a miscarriage anyway.

Its completely undignified and cruel.

Would this technically even be an abortion?

One definition I found is "a medical intervention to end a pregnancy growing in the womb". In this case no medical intervention need take place.

Another definition is "a medical procedure to end a pregnancy". Surely turning off life support is not "a medical procedure"?

I'm not sure that a foetus which can't survive outside the womb is a baby any more than a trans woman is a woman...

The laws are less "medical abortions are no longer acceptable" and more "any medical intervention that could knowingly lead to the death of a fetus is illegal". They were deliberately written to be both broad and blunt.

I've made a point of not getting deep into abortion debates on Mumsnet as people come here for advice on their own lives and it's not my place to upset them. I stated my view which already tells you the answer to your questions.

But when a pregnant mother receives life saving care and a side effect of that treatment is the loss of her pregnancy, that isn't considered an abortion.

It's horrific. Cruel. I felt sick reading it.

The UK does not have liberal abortion laws - our laws are actually much more restrictive than in quite a few US states. What we have is a public consensus that women should be able to make decisions on when they are ready to be pregnant and give birth, and safe care based on those decisions. Doctors, thank goodness, still (just) have a collective folk memory of what it was like when abortion was illegal and they had to face the disastrous outcomes of illegal abortions.

That consensus is vulnerable. Sometime, somewhere, some politicians are going decide that there's some votes in this. That's why I respect Stella Creasey for trying to get the consensus into real laws.

Could it maybe be a debt that they will still have / be chased for etc ?

The whole situation is diabolical .

Ok, so you are 100% anti abortion but with certain cases you wriggle out by saying they are not considered abortion. What about the other case? The raped 13 year old who would rather not have her rapist father's child? You believe she should be forced to, and you have the right to force her?

I don't think the law necessarily takes any account of the viability of the foetus: the absolute certainty that a baby will be born so terminally damaged that it will only survive a few hours at best is not a reason to abort it (and maybe try again, if it was a wanted baby that went tragically wrong) in some states. Isn't Georgia the state where some doctors wouldn't "abort" an ectopic pregnancy because the foetus might be "alive" and they might get prosecuted for murder? Or was that some other part of the USA that has retreated to the dark ages?

And her poor little boy, being taken to see mummy in the hospital, how is that supposed to help him to understand and come to terms with what has happened in his little life.

It is barbaric, and has nothing to do with the sanctity of life, or morality, or concern for family life, but everything to do with people assuming control over other peoples lives just because they can.

This is horrific

Perhaps, I don’t really know much about how the medical bills system and all that work to make a clear cut comment in terms of yes or no.

But things like this are a consequence of people who share your opinion, or hold it more strongly, being allowed to make decisions about laws and health.

Things like this should make you question the opinion you hold.

Similar case has already happened in the USA. The woman's body was breaking down and poisoning the baby, who wasn't going to survive. Her husband was finally allowed to get the life support machines switched off after going through court. It's just horrendous.

I may be of the minority here I'm assuming, but if that was me and my pregnancy, or my sister and her pregnancy (especially having a toddler without a sibling who will already be losing their mum) then I would want them to try and make the pregnancy successful.
It's something that should be discussed in early pregnancy notes really so there is knowledge as to what the mum would want rather than doctors making the decision.

I think that's a really important point. In the UK we might keep a woman alive under similar circumstances (almost certainly only if later on the pregnancy), if the family were supportive, but if the baby was so damaged by it all that it wouldn't survive or would be in a terrible condition, then that would be a big factor for switching off the machines.

In this state, abortion is so restricted, even in the case of fatal abnormalities that the health of the baby is irrelevant to them. In the UK we'd do detailed checks to try and determine the prognosis for the baby, because there's a decision to be made, but in this case they don't need to as it's irrelevant.

I question some of the family's statements because it is illegal under state and federal law to require the family of a deceased adult person to pay that person's final medical bills. The dead person's estate pays and if that money is exhausted the remaining bills are either written off or reimburse to the hospital by the federal government. I know this for a fact because after my brother died broke and intestate, the hospital tried to get my parents to pay his final bills. They refused, citing the law and the hospital had to admit that they were wrong to attempt collection.

I can't speak directly to this case, but if the family is saying they are being forced to pay the woman's bills, they are either misinformed, lying, or being taken advantage of.