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“ATLANTA (AP) — A pregnant woman in Georgia was declared brain-dead after a medical emergency and has been kept on life support for three months by doctors to allow enough time for the baby to be born and comply with Georgia’s strict anti-abortion law, family members say.
“Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, was declared brain-dead — meaning she is legally dead — in February, her mother, April Newkirk, told Atlanta TV station WXIA.”
“The baby boy born prematurely to a Georgia woman who had been declared brain dead after a medical emergency remains in the hospital nearly six months after his birth, his grandmother says.
“Adriana Smith, a 31-year-old mother and nurse, was declared legally dead in February, but she was put on life support for months to let her fetus grow enough to develop.
“Chance April Newkirk was born in June and weighed 1 pound and 13 ounces.
“Smith’s family says that the hospital told them that they were required to put the Atlanta mother on life support under Georgia’s anti-abortion law.”
“On March 20, in response to a 911 call in Tipton, Georgia, emergency medical services found a 24-year-old woman unconscious and bleeding in her apartment. They determined she had suffered a miscarriage and transported her to a hospital for treatment.
“The next day, after a witness said the woman had placed the fetal remains in a bag and placed the bag in a dumpster, Tipton police announced she had been arrested, taken into custody by the local sheriff, and charged with concealing the death of another person and abandonment of a dead body.
“After the coroner determined she had suffered a “natural miscarriage,” prosecutors dismissed the charges two weeks later, explaining in a press release that the charges did not apply because the 19-week fetus had not been born alive.
“Georgia lawmakers are among those citing the case as a example of an alarming trend—a growing number of women facing criminal prosecutions related to pregnancy loss.
“Every woman of reproductive age in Georgia who miscarries beyond the six-week marker of Georgia’s law can now be criminalized for a miscarriage,” Georgia state Sen. Sally Harrell argued during a hearing last week.”
There are many more examples of the legally sanctioned abuse women continue to endure under the guise of protecting the life of an unborn child. But this has nothing to do with protecting children; it has everything to do with victimizing women for no other reason except that they are women and therefore are expected to tolerate it. And, I am willing to bet, like most men in this country, I had no idea this was happening. I am a journalist of more than 40 years, college-educated and prep schooled, well-informed (I thought), but I had no idea that a woman could be criminally prosecuted for a miscarriage in several backward states in the year 2026 until my wife of 27 years brought this to my attention. I’m assuming she hadn’t mentioned it to me before because most women live with this kind of knowledge all day, every day, so it’s not a news flash to them. It’s just another day in the life of women in America.
And in America, perhaps you (men) didn’t know that there are currently six states where a woman can face legal action and possibly be thrown in jail for the ‘crime’ of a miscarriage: Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Alabama, Arkansas, and South Carolina. Until 2022, California was on that list, but it woke up and realized something horribly wrong was going on under its watch.
As far as “fetal personhood” is concerned, it is important to realize that the Talmud does not recognize a fetus as a “person” until the mother is in active labor and the baby takes its first independent breath. Fetuses cannot breathe or live outside the womb without medical assistance until at least 24 weeks (6 months).
But here’s the thing about when women have a miscarriage: 1 in 5 pregnancies result in miscarriage. That is because the body rejects the pregnancy on its own, usually because the body knows something is wrong. It’s biology, not criminology.
And yet women, often disproportionately Black and low-income women (because of course that’s the case), have faced charges such as “abuse of a corpse,” “concealing a death,” “felony child neglect,” and sometimes homicide.
Research shows a rising trend of such investigations, with many prosecutors using feticide or “fetal personhood” laws to treat pregnancy loss as a criminal act. In Oklahoma, multiple women have been prosecuted for manslaughter or child neglect following miscarriages where they tested positive for drug use.
It would be convenient to blame this warped behavior and the twisted mentality that leads to this behavior on Trump and Trumpism. And certainly, the sickness he has unleashed upon America throughout both of his terms in office has played a part in the amplification and attempted normalization of these acts of violence. But the truth is, this sort of anti-woman activity, which is even exhibited and supported by some women, was around long before Trump. It is the sort of moral infection that can lead to the election of a Donald Trump and others like him.
One day, Trump will be gone. But this issue has the potential to survive as a cancerous threat for much longer.
Our goal is to make “We Are Speaking” a best-selling publication by July 1, 2026, increasing our reach and influence! To achieve our goal, we will need 15 new paid subscribers every week, or 5 paid subscribers per day for the three days a week we publish. If you value our publication, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month or $50/year. We appreciate your financial support!
