Real life handmaids tale: Adriana Smith

[Burntt]

is there a thread on this yet?

Adriana smith is brain dead and her family want to turn the machines off. But because this is Georgia she is being kept on life support because she was pregnant. The fetus has fluid on the brain is highly likely to be disabled. The family who want to turn the life support off will be liable for the medical bills and care for the child.

this was also an episode of handmaids tale.

A corpse literally has more rights than her as you cannot use a corpses organs without consent.

I don’t really know what to say other than I’m disgusted at the treatment of this poor woman and her family. I came here looking for a thread and didn’t see one, sorry if I missed it

I'm in the US and am highly disturbed by this event. It has taken months to get media attention.

She is a corpse - a living corpse. She should be laid to rest. This is grotesque.

Poor woman, and her poor family. What a barbaric system.

I remember the Marlise Munoz case when she was also kept alive but was brain dead because she was pregnant. I think there were significant concerns that her body was breaking down and whether a brain dead body could maintain a pregnancy. That foetus also had hydrocephalus and had also been deprived of oxygen.
In this horrifying Georgia repeat they must be having to provide some form of nutrition but a peg feed won't be effective surely as she has no brain stem activity? How can the foetus possibly develop without the usual bodily functions on pregnancy? This is a macabre experiment all round, of no benefit to anyone and considerable distress to the family of Adriana

It's beyond ghoulish. Very OfMatthew.

Sadly I dont think this is just about what is going on in Trump's America.

There have been different cases over the years. Sometimes the family wanting the woman concerned to be kept "alive" so a baby can come to terms, and sometimes because doctors weren't clear about the implications of confirming the mother is no longer able to breathe on her own, but the fact that she cannot give consent to what would otherwise be her choice to have an abortion.

I think it has always varied from state to state, family especially the father's opinion.

Horrible to think about, but almost as though you need some sort of living will saying that should there be a such a situation whilst you are pregnant whether you would want to be kept alive for the sake ofa a potential baby.

This is from 2014 https://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/04/world/americas/canada-brain-dead-woman

“It should have been left up to the family,” heer mother said, telling the station that doctors informed the family they are legally not allowed to consider any other options.

“I’m not saying that we would have chose to terminate her pregnancy, but what I’m saying is, we should have had a choice,” she said.

... the family is also having to deal with the financial responsibility of keeping Smith on life support.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/family-forced-keep-brain-dead-pregnant-woman-alive-rcna207002

It's utterly shocking ...

It's horrifyingly sad.

Though if I'm honest I'm not as horrified by her being kept alive as some people because if (and it's a big if in this case) the baby has a good chance of a good life, then I'd choose to extend my death so my unborn child could live. In America, some people are kept on life support, brain dead for years, decades, because their family demand it. That I find more disturbing tbh.

Or at least, that would certainly be my preference in the second trimester, where it wouldn't be for so many months and I'd have more bonded with my unborn child. Maybe for the first trimester I'd accept us dying together.

I think a lot of women would be ok with it for a short period (for some a few hours, others days or weeks, maybe longer), so it's not totally black and white. But this case is for a very long time, and I can see why that's uncomfortable.

I personally thing things like this should be decided on a case by case basis taking into account the wishes of the family, any previously expressed wishes of the mum, and the individual circumstances.

Bloody hell. 9 weeks pregnant when she died, now 21 weeks and they aren't going to intervene until 32 weeks. And then they are going to present the family with the medical bills?!?

I truly don't have the words to convey how completely fucked up this is.

She was 9 weeks pregnant. This baby has no chance at a normal life.

Gestating inside a corpse is not a fate I'd wish on any fetus.

Sadly I dont think this is just about what is going on in Trump's America.

No, definitely not. It’s the horseshoe effect again. The first thing I thought of when I saw this article was the article from a lawyer on surrogacy where a California couple had had it stipulated in their surrogacy contract that should this happen to their “gestational carrier” then they would get the final say on withdrawal of care, not her husband, lest there be a chance of getting the fetus to a viable gestation.

So as much as this sounds like a horrific example of extreme right wing control over women’s bodies, worth remembering that the extreme left wing, so called “progressives”, want this too.

Only difference is the “progressives” are hypocrites and will pretend they’re somehow different.

By UK standards I'm prolife. But this is obscene. The family aren't asking for an abortion, for pity's sake, they're asking for their brain dead daughter to be taken off futile life support. This is torture.

Its strange that the father of the potential child has not been asked or refused to give an opinion. (I think this would or could be their second child.)

Not that I am saying a man should have a right to make use of a woman's body.

And not that I cant totally sympathise with her mother feeling that they should have been consulted.

Let alone being told well this is the law in this state, and like it or not, we are going to make you pay the cost of this.

Although again this brings up the issue of if you have to pay for your health care at which point do those without the money or the medical insurance have any ability to make a free choice.

In an ideal world, although it sounds horrible, pregnant women should make clear their wishes in the eventuality of something like this happening during a pregnancy.

I think people are missing the issue of vent farms here. Keeping someone mechanically ventilated for a long time isn't unusual in America. There's a fascinating Louis Theroux on it.

The point being that we think keeping people alive on life support for a prolonged period is weird, undignified, wrong. But America (overall) clearly doesn't see it like that because thousands of ventilated people are kept in comas for years, decades even because their relatives can't bear to see them die. Crucially, if the family wanted, poor Adriana could be kept alive for the next 40 years.

I don't agree with the decision to keep her alive given how early in pregnancy she was, but I can't get upset about the lack of dignity in prolonging her death for months for a specific reason, when others are violated in the same way for no particular reason for decades.

America is nutty.

That is an horrific clause controlling the surrogate mother. It should be illegal.

Apparently the hospital that won't switch her off are the reason she is in this position to begin with

This is wrong on so many levels. The amount of stimulation a pre birth foetus gets from hearing the everyday noises of its mother’s life, the ups and downs of its mothers hormones, the variety of chemicals is gets from the diet its mother eats, the awake and sleep patterns. How can being inside an animated corpse match that?

Also, how on earth can anyone other than the state be liable for these costs? If pro-life is so important in the US, surely they will be happy to pay for this bizarre incubation and all the expenses of the ensuing child: their education, their healthcare, their bed and board…

Do you mean the hospital itself all but killed her?

It sounds like she presented to the hospital with symptoms, was sent away, and then was found collapsed. There's no guarantee prompt treatment would actually have made any difference, but it does leave a bitter taste.

I could completely understand if she was 38 weeks and the hospital staff just needed a little bit of time to plan a safe delivery. A few calm hours instead of rushing to save the baby could make a huge difference in long term outcomes.

This case is abhorrent.

There is no slippery slope that gets us from taking the time to save a viable fetus to using a human woman as an incubator.

that bills are accumulating just makes this even worse.

There was a horrible case like this here in Ireland in 2014, a few years before the the abortion referendum. She was 26 years old and had suffered a major neurologicsl incident that left her brain dead. Her father (next of kin) wanted her life support switched off but hospital staff were concerned this would violate the fetus's right to life. It went to the high court on December 26th, which thankfully ruled against the health service saying the fetus's right to life has already been exhausted as there was no hope of it reaching viability. A really grotesque case, one of many shameful prolife incidents in my lifetime
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PP_v._HSE

Here's an interesting one. In this case the mum was 16 weeks pregnant when she suffered brain death, and in consultation with family it was agreed to keep her alive. She was kept on life support until 32 weeks when her healthy baby was delivered by section.

The amount of work in keeping her body in good enough condition for the pregnancy was huge though, lots of medication, lots of physio. The family would sit and chat to the 'bump' read it fairytales etc.

This was in the Czech republic btw, not USA.

It seems from reading around with this that if fetus isn't injured from what happened to mum (oxygen deprivation for example), their chances of survival are really good. About 2/3ds of recorded cases survived in one journal I saw. BUT that's with the big caveat that where the baby is unlikely to survive because of likely oxygen deprivation etc, then maternal support probably wouldn't be continued, and they'd not be counted in the records.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8141338/

I found the article I was reminded of, for reference:

https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/11/20390/

If the surrogate is in her second or third trimester of pregnancy and in the event that medical life support equipment is required to preserve and maintain the life of the Surrogate and if requested by the Intended Parents, the Surrogate and her husband agree that the Surrogate’s life will be sustained with life support equipment for a period to achieve viability of the fetus taking into account the best interests and well-being of the fetus . . . The Intended Parents will make the decision with regard to how long the life support should be continued prior to the birth of the Child taking into account the obstetrician or perinatologist’s recommendation and the desires of the family of the Surrogate. The Surrogate’s husband, or her next of kin, is solely responsible for determining the time at which life support treatment will be discontinued following the birth of the Child.