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Adriana Smith was nine weeks pregnant when she suffered a medical emergency in Atlanta, Georgia. Doctors could not save her, but they chose to save her fetus by maintaining her body on organ support for four months – reportedly to comply with Georgia’s state law, which bans abortion after about six weeks and gives fetuses the legal status of personhood. Doctors also did so without her family’s consent.
Smith’s case ignited a firestorm of controversy, with two opposing viewpoints: one contending that it represents “demeaning governmental overreach that quashes women’s bodily autonomy” and the other framing it as “the righteous sacrifice of motherhood,” writes Lindsey Breitwieser, a scholar in gender and technology studies at Hollins University. Many described it as a direct outcome of the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which gutted the constitutional right to abortion.
But Breitwieser argues that the ethics surrounding such cases, in which brain-dead pregnant women are kept on life support to allow their fetus to develop, require a more nuanced view. “Ultimately, women like Adriana Smith and their fetuses are inseparable and persist in a technologically defined state of in-betweenness,” she writes. “In my view, it is possible to adapt our ethical standards in a way that honors all beings in these exceptional circumstances, without privileging either ‘choice’ or ‘life,’ mother or fetus.”
One final note: Our summer membership drive ended yesterday, which means you won’t get any of our appeals for a few months now |
