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.

I think you should start telling people and let them make their own mind up about you. If you’re going to hold these beliefs then say it with your chest.

Organ harvesting from Chinese people sentenced to death row. The organs are sent to other countries too. Some inmates were reportedly killed by removing their hearts for donation.

I think I read somewhere your family gets an easier time of it if you agree to donate your organs.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/4/6/holdchinesemedicskilleddeath-rowinmates-by-taking-hearts-report

if it isn't i will stand corrected.. but the story doing the round on USA social media are that

1. she has a DNR
2. Her partner and family don't support this
3. Some form of life saving care when she WAS alive was refused in case she had a miscarriage when she attended the day before., and then was later declared brain dead.

I know you’re asking this to the PP, but I will reply. I believe every woman or girl should be able to have the choice to have an abortion full stop. Whatever their reason it doesn’t matter to me. It is their choice. I think if you say women or girls can only get an abortion if they’ve been raped we start getting into a much darker conversation. It becomes less about choice and more about control and punishment. It’s very responsible to choose to have an abortion if you feel you wouldn’t be able to raise the child for whatever reason. All abortion laws do is punish the woman for having sex. Abortion doesn’t punish men the same way.

This is a tragic story, that poor family.

I think the fetus is most certainly not viable and the pregnancy will cease very soon, then the poor woman will be allowed to die with dignity.
Pregnancy is a precarious state in the best of circumstances and situations, and this type of situation makes me more sure of my pro choice stance, and because of personal experience.
Sepsis nearly killed me when my twin boy & girl both died in my womb , but I didn’t miscarry and had to have a D & C which saved my life.

I hope this woman passes in peace and dignity

I think the key in this case is that Georgia law confers personhood on a fetus as soon as a heart beat is detected. So if you extrapolate that, a hospital turning off the mother’s life support might be considered to be murdering a person (the fetus) I imagine the hospital are concerned about the implications and are trying to work out what the best course of action is while protecting their staff from prosecution and respecting the dignity of the mother and fetus. I am guessing this scenario has not arisen in Georgia since this law came into effect, and might generate some clarification for this circumstance in the future.

Just for info Georgia law does allow termination of a fetus if the fetus has a condition that means it is medically futile to continue the pregnancy. It also allows for treatment of ectopic pregnancy and those that physically endanger the life of the mother and it instances of rape and incest that have been reported to the police where the fetus is pre 20 wks.

its just a horrific scenario from so many different angles

Possibly the ct scan it’s essentially a series of c rays and the radiation could harm the fetus thst said she could of worn an iron apron to protect the fetus if necessary.

Earlier diagnosis could of saved her life. I’m not sure if they’d routinely do a ct scan for a headache though there. I was in A&E with an awful headache once and I had no tests / ct scan. Then I developed stroke like symtoms so had to go back to be admitted and then I got a ct scan.

I think ideally everyone should have proper diagnostics but I don’t know if they didn’t go a ct scan as she was pregnant or if they didn’t think one was medically necessary.

It's v complicated. I've got a long-standing interest in medical ethics, hence why I've got such an interest in this case.

Babies born to a dead mum isn't that unusual tbh, but it's the duration that's she's being kept on life support that is. For example paramedics can perform a perimortem cesarean section on a woman who is in cardiac arrest or already dead, to try to save the baby (and where mum is still alive, her too obviously). Last year there was that tragic case where a heavily pregnant woman fell from a tower block. She was declared dead at the scene and her baby born shortly after. Despite the fall and circumstances of her birth the baby survived.

I agree about quality of life being the important thing and I'm really sorry to hear about your cousin :-(

From the other side of this, but kind of linked, what do you think of pregnancies of babies with conditions like anencephaly, where the babies will die at birth, being continued so their organs can be donated? One one hand, that baby will save the life of several others. But they are being kept alive so their body parts can be harvested, which sounds horrific. What an awful decision to have to make.

What about if that life saving care is a termination of a pregnancy?
How do you decide what constitutes life saving care? It sounds simple, but it really isn’t in many situations.

Agree
25 years is crazy, do you mind me asking who is paying for this enormous cost of care

This is so depressing it's unbearable. The United States is imploding. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in some backwards third world country.

Same question to you then. What countries have been governed by the left over the last 15 years and done these things that you claim "let the right in"?

I work in healthcare (clinical role) so my job everyday we have ethics to think about. Of course there are guidelines and we try and do what is in the best interest for the patient. But it’s sometimes just not a black and white case. There are certainly many grey areas and whatever my personal view is I do my job professionally.

I agree with you about the length of time.And think I actually remember that case you’re talking about. She was quite late in the pregnancy? I believe that was the right thing to do, such a sad story but great the baby was saved.

Thank you, I just find it sad because I’ve had to watch my aunty become almost a shadow of herself due to the stress. It’s the remaining family that suffer the most in these cases.

Honestly that’s should a hard answer and never really thought about it before. I believe the mother should be able to make that decision I wouldn’t judge her for whatever she chose to do. There are babies that need transplants and in order to get them some babies sadly will die in order for it to happen. Morally we could question who are we to play God. But without transplants a lot of people would die. I think we’ve also gotten past that stage since we have IVF, life prolonging medication. For me personally, if I chose to have the baby and found out at a scan it would die soon after birth, no chance of survival would I go ahead with it as it could save other babies lives via transplants, then yes, possibly I would go ahead with it. For me though I wouldn’t want the baby to be in pain so if there was a chance they would feel pain after birth then no, I would get an abortion.

The UK taxpayer. Aunty also had to have her house modified so all his medical equipment would fit - hoists etc which was paid for. She also won a huge payout as he was under psychiatric care at the time and had escaped several times and went missing with the last escape ending in him trying to kill himself. This I’m very conflicted about.

@Babyboomtastic

Under his eye

good lord! You have no idea what you are talking about.

CT scans use X rays. You get a CT scan if clinically indicated and potential benefit out weighs risk. An ‘iron curtain’ (you mean a lead gown, although they are not made of lead any more), would not be helpful and could actually increase dose to the foetus.

Sounds like in your case, you didn’t initially
meet the threshold for a CT. When you represented with ‘stroke like symptoms’ you did. Also sounds like you hadn’t actually had a stroke or anything that was detected by the CT so your clinicians were entirely justified in their initial assessment and decision.

Any and all watering down of sex based protections.

It's different if an emergency CS is performed to save a baby if the mother is dying or has died. She isn't being kept artificially going in order to incubabte the foetus.

A few PP have wondered why this case is considered so horrific, it's becuase a fœtus is being gestated in its dead mother's corpse. It's all very experimental and extremely unlikely this particular baby will ever be born alive.
The family do not consent and I don't think it should be allowed.

And people are allowed to disagree with your opinion.

Just a reminder that Malta has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe and also has self identification of gender. There is absolutely nothing stopping a government of any type deciding that they're going to implement more restrictive abortion laws except constant vigilance. I'm as pro choice as its possible to be but I recognise that culture has more impact on the laws that get passed than the label on the government. Tbh the long history of posh British women of left and right being into eugenics has some influence on why we have the abortion and contraception culture we have. But it still means that the foundational freedom not to be used as an incubator whether dead or alive is ours.

Absolutely, a cracking impression of a dimwit.

But surely it would be stopping the medical intervention of the mother? Don't understand this at all. Its not an abortion and it's not medical intervention that could lead to the death of a foetus by turning off a machine. In fact its just letting nature do its own thing

Not comparable. It was never locked down because they wanted to hold voters hostage over it. Dreadful.

If you're dead, what does it matter?