In May and June 2025, a claim circulated online that doctors kept a brain-dead pregnant woman in Georgia artificially alive against her family's wishes so the gestation would reach a term at which the baby might survive on its own. This was supposedly due to the abortion ban in the state.
For example, a June 17 post on X claimed doctors had pulled the baby out of her body via cesarian section because it was "rotting" (archived):
The post had reached 1.9 million views and 104,000 likes as of this writing. It was not the first post on the topic. In May, writer and activist Jessica Valenti posted a video discussing the situation on her X account (archived):
"If you have the capacity for pregnancy, you are not a person to them," Valenti said in the video. "You are a vessel, you are an incubator, but you are most certainly not a human being, because you don't treat human beings like this."
The post had reached 185,000 views and 1,900 likes as of this writing. The claim further spread on X, where one post garnered 3.8 million views (archived), on TikTok and on Reddit. Further, Snopes readers searched the site seeking to confirm the veracity of the rumor.
Snopes was able to determine that several reputable news sources had reported on the story, including The Associated Press, NBC News and local NBC affiliate WXIA. Snopes attempted to contact April Newkirk, the woman in question's mother and the source of the details reported in those outlets, to confirm the story, and we will update this article should she respond.
According to these reports, Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse and mother of one, was nine weeks pregnant when she died in February. She went to Northside Hospital seeking treatment following "intense headaches," Newkirk told WXIA. Newkirk said the doctors there did not do tests and sent her home with medication. The next day, her boyfriend called 911 after he noticed her struggling to breathe, and Smith was admitted to Emory University Hospital, where she worked. There, doctors identified blood clots in her brain on a CT scan and declared her brain-dead, which constitutes legal death in all 50 states.
However, due to Georgia's ban on abortion, effective from the moment a heartbeat is detectable, doctors reportedly told Smith's family they would not turn off the machines that were keeping her body functionally alive. (A heartbeat is generally detectable in the embryo at six weeks of pregnancy.)
Doctors hoped to take the pregnancy to 32 weeks to increase the fetus' chances of survival. Smith was moved to Emory Decatur Hospital, which had better obstetric care. We reached out to the hospital for more details and will update the story should we receive an answer.
However, Newkirk had said the doctors told her the fetus, which was male, had fluid around its brain, though it was not clear how much, and that they were concerned about its health. Further, the financial cost of Smith's long-term hospital stay was also a concern for her family.
Reports said the baby was born prematurely on June 13, 2025 — at about 25 weeks, Snopes calculated, based on the fact that her mother had told news outlets Smith had reached 21 weeks of pregnancy the week of May 12. The baby was in the neonatal intensive care unit and weighed 1 pound and 13 ounces, according to reports.