When your headlines reduce Adriana Smith to “Georgia woman on life support,” you participate in the same erasure that Georgia’s Heartbeat Law has codified: stripping her of identity, agency, and humanity. When you report in that manner, she becomes a condition, a vessel, a headline-friendly tragedy—everything but a person. But Adriana Smith was a woman with a name, a life, and rights that should have been respected and protected. Not using her name reinforces the very logic that made her body a battleground for politics. Name her. It’s the first step in remembering that she is not just a womb—she is a person, and she matters.
In America, now more than ever, it has become increasingly dangerous for a female to become pregnant. The term female is apropos and intentional, as girls as young as 10 have been forced to carry and deliver babies in certain states, despite their bodies not being fully developed. This is a result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade—and it signifies that when it comes to pregnancy (in many states), being a woman is irrelevant. As long as you are female, if you become pregnant, you will be forced to gestate. Period.
It doesn’t matter if you were violated. It doesn’t matter if the pregnancy puts your life in danger. It doesn’t matter if the baby dies inside of you. And in this case, it doesn’t even matter if you are deemed “brain dead.” You will still be forced to carry that fetus to full term. And THIS is what is currently going on in the state of Georgia.
Adriana Smith Is Not an Incubator
Her name is Adriana Smith, but as stated, many of the headlines connected to her story rarely mention her name. Instead, you see: “Brain-dead woman…” “Pregnant Georgia mother…” “Pregnant brain-dead woman on life support…”
These titles quickly reduce her to a condition and/or gender—the same way the state of Georgia has reduced her to a human incubator.
Smith, age 30, is a nurse who was in the second trimester of her pregnancy when she went to Northside Hospital Atlanta in February for severe headaches. She was sent home with medication; however, no tests were run. Smith’s mother believes that had doctors initially performed tests and a CT scan, they may have detected numerous blood clots in her brain.
Fetal Rights vs. Human Rights
Georgia's “heartbeat law,” formally known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act (LIFE Act), bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy—when a fetal heartbeat can typically be detected.
There are concessions for certain instances of rape or incest; however, the stipulations still make accessing reproductive care extremely difficult even in those cases.
Smith is legally “brain dead” and in a vegetative state. She has been on life support for over 100 days because, in Georgia in 2025, a fetus has more rights than the mother. Doctors are keeping her body functioning long enough to—for lack of a better term—“harvest” the baby.
Since this country’s inception, Black bodies—particularly those of Black women—have been experimented on to advance science. This is no different. And although this is the result of recent legislative changes in reproductive care, it also borders on unlawful experimentation, which is highly unethical.
Smith’s mother told reporters: "My grandson may be blind, may not be able to walk. We don’t know if he’ll live once she has him."
She also told WXIA-TV: "I’m not saying we would have chosen to terminate her pregnancy. What I’m saying is we should have had a choice."
There is also the concern of a growing hospital bill (which, frankly, the state should be paying if they are forcing this—which they are), as well as questions about how future care will be provided for a potentially special needs child.
But the biggest issue isn’t what they would or wouldn’t have done. It’s the fact that Smith’s own parents had no choice or say in the matter of what happens to their daughter and the fetus inside of her.
Furthermore, this raises a larger question: Is Power of Attorney or legal guardianship over pregnant female humans now null and void—superseded entirely by state law? Is a designated individual no longer able to make legal decisions on their behalf?
These are new legal and ethical problems created by the Heartbeat Act and similar legislation.
Behind the Law’s Consequences
Smith was a registered nurse at Emory University Hospital. It’s ironic—and devastating—that she is now under the care of the very hospital she once worked for. One can only imagine how triggering this must be for some of her colleagues, who must see and hear the news stories—perhaps even care for her.
She mattered to them. She mattered to her family. She simply mattered.
This is not how anyone’s mother, daughter, sister, aunt, or partner should be treated. Smith is a person—not just a womb, as some lawmakers and ideologues in this country would have you believe.
This is also not how families should be treated when it comes to life-and-death decision-making and hospital care for loved ones who are no longer viable.
What Are Pregnant Women Supposed to Do?
This raises an even bigger question: What are pregnant women in these states supposed to do in a medical crisis now?
Doctors and nurses are terrified to treat them. We’ve already seen cases where pregnant women were left untreated and hemorrhaging in emergency rooms. And now, because of these life-threatening and asinine laws, more and more practitioners are leaving obstetrics—out of fear of being arrested, charged, or even imprisoned for providing medical care to a female human in need.
This is a valid concern. Women can now be criminally charged for miscarrying—a natural occurrence (spontaneous abortion). Doctors and nurses face the threat of being blamed, sued, charged, losing their licenses, or even facing jail time for stillbirths.
Once again: A natural occurrence.