Atheist refutes those blaming Georgia abortion law as brain dead woman is kept on life support
Abortion advocates are framing the case involving a pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead and has been kept on life support for three months as a knock on the state's abortion law, drawing a rebuttal from a leading pro-life atheist who believes critics are misreading the statute.
Monica Snyder, the executive director of Secular Pro-Life, an organization comprised of atheists and agnostics who advocate against abortion, commented on the case of Adriana Smith in a Friday X post.
Smith is a 30-year-old mother who was declared brain dead three months ago, but the hospital has kept her on life support, as The Associated Press reported Thursday.
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Snyder, who has a bachelor's in chemical biology and a master's in forensic science, argued Georgia's law about withdrawing life support for pregnant patients is likely the reason for the hospital's actions, not the state's abortion law.
"The way abortion advocates frame this case shows striking indifference to prenatal children, as well as a profound ignorance regarding how many mothers, on both sides of the abortion debate, would want strong protections for our children in situations like this," Snyder declared.
According to AP, Smith's mother, April Newkirk, told Atlanta TV station WXIA that her daughter started experiencing intense headaches three months ago. Smith received medication from Atlanta's Northside Hospital, which then released her, but the next morning, the woman's boyfriend heard his girlfriend gasping for air.
Smith's boyfriend called 911, and Emory University Hospital determined that she had blood clots in her brain and declared her brain dead. According to Smith's family, the doctors informed them that they cannot remove the breathing tubes or other life-saving devices due to Georgia's abortion law.
The state's law bans most abortions once an unborn child's heartbeat becomes detectable, which is usually around six weeks of gestation. While Georgia adopted the law in 2019, the state didn't enforce it until after the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Emory Healthcare did not immediately respond to The Christian Post's request for comment. Although it didn't comment directly on Smith's case, Emory Healthcare told AP in a statement that it "uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia's abortion laws and all other applicable laws."
"Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve," the organization stated.
Smith's family has not stated publicly whether it wants her removed from life support, which would effectively kill the baby, who they believe will have severe health challenges when he is born.
In response to the news about Smith, several abortion advocates on social media have compared the woman's situation to The Handmaid's Tale. One X user wrote in a Friday post that the state of Georgia had "kidnapped [Smith's] body from her family."
Author Monica Hesse also likened the situation to The Handmaid's Tale in a Friday op-ed for The Washington Post, stating that "the body of Adriana Smith is being put through hell."
"It turns out I can still be stunned and infuriated by the audacity with which some lawmakers will decide that the lives of women do not matter," Hesse wrote. "By the absolutely perverse definitions of life and dignity and religion that they use to justify this grotesquerie."
In a Friday article for Secular Pro-Life, Snyder noted that most of the media coverage about Smith doesn't appear to have quoted any doctors or attorneys.
Citing Georgia's abortion law, Snyder stressed that the law defines abortion as "the act of using, prescribing, or administering any instrument, substance, device, or other means with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy."
She argued that removing someone from life support does not involve "administering" anything, which she asserted raises questions about the relevancy of Georgia's abortion law in this case.
"It's more likely that Georgia's law regarding withdrawing life support for pregnant patients is the issue," Snyder wrote, citing GA Code § 31-32-9, which was enacted in 2007.
According to the code, doctors cannot remove life support from a pregnant patient unless her unborn child isn't viable or if the woman had outlined in an advanced directive that she wanted life-saving measures withdrawn.
"It's a testament to how very little abortion advocates value unborn children, that even in a case where the woman (1) cannot be harmed by continuing the pregnancy and (2) may very well have wanted her child to live, the framing is outrage that her son's life is prioritized," Snyder stated.
Medical law experts who spoke with AP are also of the opinion that removing ventilation or other forms of life support from the mother would not constitute an abortion under state law.
This is not the first time that questions over how doctors handle pregnant patients in light of Georgia's abortion law have generated national headlines.
A ProPublica report last year on two women who died when they didn't get adequate medical treatment after complications arose from taking the abortion pill — Amber Thurman and Candi Miller— drew much outrage from abortion advocates. Democrats, such as former Vice President Kamala Harris, alleged that the state's abortion restriction was to blame for the women's deaths.
However, pro-life doctors believe "gross medical negligence" was to blame, saying that in Thurman's case, medical professionals should have been able to tell that she needed a dilation and curettage to save her life. Dr. Ingrid Skop, an OB-GYN with over 30 years of experience, wonders if the medical judgment of doctors was "gaslit" by pro-abortion organizations that have promoted the abortion drug mifepristone as "safer than Tylenol?"
"Georgia's abortion law did not cause her death," Dr. Christina Francis, the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, stated. "Per reports, her babies were no longer alive when she arrived at the hospital, so this law would not have even applied in her circumstance."
Last October, Thurman's family, with the help of high-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump, filed a lawsuit saying that the doctors at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge were to blame for the woman's death.
"Even under Georgia law, the doctors had a duty to act to save Amber," Crump said. "She had taken the abortion pills and there were tissues left. There was no viable fetus or anything that would have prevented them from saving her life while she suffered."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
