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In the state of Georgia, a woman declared brain-dead is being kept on life support because she's pregnant. Hospital officials point to Georgia's abortion law, which bans a procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy and gives her fetus the same rights as a person. But conservatives in the state disagree over whether that personhood provision applies. Here's Jess Mador from member station WABE in Atlanta.
JESS MADOR, BYLINE: By the time she ended up at an Atlanta hospital with emergency complications, nurse Adriana Smith was almost nine weeks pregnant. Smith's mother, April Newkirk, told Atlanta TV station WXIA her condition, which included multiple blood clots in her brain, deteriorated as doctors tried to save her life.
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APRIL NEWKIRK: But then they called me back, and they said that they couldn't do it.
MADOR: She says doctors put her daughter on life support without asking the family. That was more than three months ago.
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NEWKIRK: And I'm not saying that we would have chose to terminate her pregnancy. What I'm saying is we should have had a choice.
MADOR: Emory Healthcare isn't commenting on the case, except for a statement saying its providers comply with all applicable laws, including Georgia's abortion law. And that's where it gets confusing. Georgia's Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, has said there's nothing in the law that requires the hospital to keep a woman on life support if she's pregnant. Mary Ziegler is a law professor at the University of California, Davis.
MARY ZIEGLER: The problem is that Georgia's law isn't just an abortion ban. It's a personhood law declaring that a fetus or embryo is a person.
MADOR: This idea that they have the rights of a person is nothing new, says Ziegler.
ZIEGLER: It has been the goal for virtually everyone in the antiabortion movement since the 1960s.
MADOR: And Ziegler says the personhood movement is gaining traction in several states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade almost three years ago, and it has implications far beyond abortion. Ziegler points to Alabama, where the legislature had to step in to protect fertility clinics after the state Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos are people. In Georgia, the personhood provision is having a profound effect on medical decisions, says Atlanta OB-GYN Dr. Zoe Lucier-Julian.
ZOE LUCIER-JULIAN: These laws create an environment of fear and attempt to coerce us as providers to align with the state, as opposed to aligning with our patients that we work so hard to serve.
MADOR: Advocates say that's the position Emory Healthcare finds itself in with the case of Adriana Smith. In a statement, Republican state lawmaker Ed Setzler, who authored Georgia's abortion law, said Emery acted appropriately when it put Smith on life support. But Cole Muzio with Georgia's conservative Christian Frontline Policy Council says he agrees with the attorney general that the state's abortion law doesn't apply.
COLE MUZIO: Taking a woman off life support is not an abortion. It just isn't. Now, I am incredibly grateful that this child will be born, even in the midst of tragic circumstances. That is a whole human life that will be able to be lived because of this beautiful mother's sacrifice.
MADOR: Smith's mother, April Newkirk, says the family's not sure her daughter's son will even survive the stresses involved in life support. But she says they'll love him no matter what.
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NEWKIRK: My grandson may be blind, may not be able to walk, wheelchair-bound. We don't know if he'll live once she has him.
MADOR: For now, Newkirk's daughter remains on life support. She's almost six months pregnant.
For NPR News, I'm Jess Mador in Atlanta.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FIELD TAPES, RECALIBRATION MACHINE AND CZARINA FROST'S "MEADOWLAND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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