Women in the US been downgraded

nanna8

How can a foetus survive if the mother is receiving no nourishment and is dead? They must be ‘feeding’ the baby in some way. It really beggars belief and if a child is born how will this affect he or she growing up, knowing these circumstances? It is like a horror film.

The mother is being maintained on life support in order to maintain the fetuses health. The family will be responsible for the cost of the hospital. An average cost in ICU is $2000 per day. They are raising money to help cover this.

My mother spent about 2 months in ICU and the total hospital bill was over $1 million dollars. Luckily, she had insurance to cover the majority of it.

I haven't looked but I am going to safely assume that the insurance this woman had stopped covering her as soon as she was declared braindead. Insurance does not cover unborn children, only the mother.

So this woman and her family are being forced, against their wishes, to pay to keep their loved one alive for a baby that will be born with defects that they will then be responsible for caring (and paying) for.

The worst part of this is that there is no enforcement mechanism of the law. If the hospital had let her and the baby died when she was 9 weeks, the State would have had little recourse against it.

I saw a headline about Farage and an abortion policy. I hope this case is a study of what happens when abortion is outlawed.

Oreo

I haven’t read the link article but am sure that either her DH or partner or parents think what she would have wanted is the safe delivery of her baby.It’s also about saving a life, the baby.
It’s the last good thing that the poor girl can do.

You should have read the article.

Adriana Smith might have received proper medical care and be alive today if she were not a black woman in the US.

Even though she was a nurse, she did not receive a CT scan when she needed one. She requested medical care but was sent home with blood clots in her brain. Im not a doctor but this sounds like malpractice.

The baby being grown has fluid on the brain.

Fluid on the brain is treatable. I hope the baby has good health and actually lives a full life. Presumably the baby can be put up for adoption?

completely against nature, so wrong to be using the body as a robotic machine.

It is truly dreadful. If I lived in that state I would seriously consider relocating to protect my children if nothing else. Heart goes out to that family.

The decision to subjct this woman to this degrading treatment was a medical decision following the relevant state passing laws banning abortion.

Doctors consulted lawyers who said that if they did not do all they could to protect the foetus, despite the death of its mother, they could be prosecuted under the new law.

ronib

Fluid on the brain is treatable. I hope the baby has good health and actually lives a full life. Presumably the baby can be put up for adoption?

Most babies born with hydrocephalus have permanent brain damage.

AI says otherwise Growstuff

AI is often wrong. Al the AI that comes up on my computer has a hazard warning.

'Treatable' meaning someone who has it can recover and continue living. This not the same as saying they can recover and have no side effects. The main side effect is significant brain damage.

The baby does not need to be put up for adoption, its dead mother was part of a family who still care about her and this in-vitro child.

ronib

AI says otherwise Growstuff

Peer-reviewed articles state that hydrocephalus can be treated if caught early, especially in adults. However, they also state that babies born with hydrocephalus, which has developed "in vitro" are at very high risk of brain damage. That's not surprising because the brain develops more before we are born than afterwards.

ronib

AI says otherwise Growstuff

One of your more frightening posts, ronib.

AI is known to be unreliable. It ca be inaccurate and even make things up.

Heaven forbid we are entering a future where 'AI says it' is a clincher....

MaizieD we simply don’t know what health conditions this poor infant will have. It hasn’t been born yet.

The baby still has a parent and a brother (and grandparents).

Having read the story now, tho not through the given link (am a bit fussy about links) the mother of the pregnant woman says that they want the baby as it’s a part of her daughter and have named him Chance.The baby is now 22 weeks and growing well and doctors will deliver the child through Caesarean in August.What the mother does say is that the hospital/State should have given them the choice in the first place, even tho they do want the baby.
I read the story in The Guardian.

If I were the grandparents of this child, I think I might say the same because I always tend to think positively and make the best of whatever situation I'm in. Nevertheless, if I'd been involved in any plans when the daughter died, I would have asked the medics to let the unborn child die. I find the idea of using the dead woman as a human incubator grotesque, apart from the very high risk that the child will be born with significant disability. I wouldn't regard the grandparent's positivity now as unqualified endorsement of what's happening.

growstuff

If I were the grandparents of this child, I think I might say the same because I always tend to think positively and make the best of whatever situation I'm in. Nevertheless, if I'd been involved in any plans when the daughter died, I would have asked the medics to let the unborn child die. I find the idea of using the dead woman as a human incubator grotesque, apart from the very high risk that the child will be born with significant disability. I wouldn't regard the grandparent's positivity now as unqualified endorsement of what's happening.

Agreed Growstuff.

I honestly don’t know how I would have reacted as the Grandmother just after my daughter died and suspect we would all have chosen different outcomes.The wishes of her family and the Father of the baby should have been taken into account of course.
This particular State says over 6 weeks of pregnancy is the limit.
Where should the line be drawn in poster’s opinion?

Seems a bit strange to me that grandparents are thought to have ownership of the foetus in these circumstances. Surely the father has more rights? Was he consulted? Since there seems to be a complete change of opinion by the maternal grandmother, if the foetus had been killed at 9 weeks there would have been no way back.

LizzieDrip

growstuff

If I were the grandparents of this child, I think I might say the same because I always tend to think positively and make the best of whatever situation I'm in. Nevertheless, if I'd been involved in any plans when the daughter died, I would have asked the medics to let the unborn child die. I find the idea of using the dead woman as a human incubator grotesque, apart from the very high risk that the child will be born with significant disability. I wouldn't regard the grandparent's positivity now as unqualified endorsement of what's happening.

Agreed Growstuff.

Agreed. Also noting the grandmother has said different things on different occasions What about the father who after all is the parent. How will family cope with long term expensive care if there are significant disabilities.

It's all grotesque, from the point at which the daughter failed to receive initial proper care - which she might if they had a well off background, to the family being railroaded by anxious doctors getting a lawyers opinion instead of letting a natural process happen, to the doctors who may well have a "Scientific Interest", ending up with this dead human incubator torturing family feelings (the grandmother did use the words "tortured")

in the glare of publicity, lives controlled by State Law and the uncertainties of GofundMe

Instead of a dignified family funeral. Wrong, wrong, grotesque indeed.

This is my understanding of the law in Georgia:

If Ms Smith had died without being pregnant, her next of kin could have decided to switch off her life support. I believe she's not married, so her next of kin would be her parents.

Abortion in Georgia is effectively illegal after detection of embryonic cardiac-cell activity, which means about two or three weeks after implantation. Many women don't even realise they're pregnant at that stage.

Pregnant women can't have their life support switched off. In many states and countries, a nine week old fetus (which is what the lady was carrying) could be aborted, then the life support could be switched off legally, if the next of kin agree. In this case, the next of kin had no say in the matter.

Ms Smith didn't have a living will, so her next of kin are her parents. I'm not sure who the baby's next of kin is (maybe his father?), but it's irrelevant because the law states the life support of pregnant women can't be switched off.

Apparently, the abortion law in Georgia was ruled unconstitutional by a superior court judge, but it's still in effect until the state's appeal is heard.

I can't really imagine what the grandparents are going through. It's bad enough to know that your daughter has died, but there isn't even any closure. There can't be a funeral yet and they can't even begin to grieve.

I don't know whether they knew their daughter was pregnant - it's very possible they didn't. There will be all sorts of conflicting emotions about trying to keep the baby alive and well. Great, if the baby is born well and it's easy to find childcare arrangements (there's already another child who's lost its mother). It wouldn't be how one would wish, but at least they'd have a child as a reminder of their own lost daughter.

However, the realities are that they're already having to look after the remaining child - apparently they've said that the mother is asleep. They're probably worried about any disabilities the unborn child will have and how they're going to deal with that. Apparently, the medical care is costing a fortune and they're having to rely on GoFundMe.

I really don't know how I'd cope with all that. That's why I would not have wanted the pregnancy to continue. However, as I'd have no choice, I'd just have to carry on - I hope they have very strong support available.

If Mum had been white and middle class, proper medical early intervention might have prevented the whole thing happening.

You think I'm making this up?

"In Georgia, Black women face the highest risk for severe pregnancy complications, and state public health data show they’re more than twice as likely as white women to die from maternal mortality.

www.msm.edu/RSSFeedArticles/2024/September/Georgia-Maternal-Health-Disparities.php

(its a 2025 article)

Did Ms Smith’s pregnancy cause the blood clot which killed her??
Some white patients in the NHS have also suffered considerably from misdiagnosis etc ….