ATLANTA — Adriana Smith, the Georgia woman declared brain dead earlier this year while nine weeks pregnant, gave birth Friday morning to a baby boy named Chance, concluding a months-long ordeal that stirred legal, medical, and ethical controversy.
The baby, born prematurely by cesarean section at 4:41 a.m. on June 13, weighed just 1 pound, 13 ounces. He is currently in the neonatal intensive care unit but is expected to survive, according to Smith’s mother, April Newkirk.
“He’s just fighting,” Newkirk told 11Alive News. “We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying for him.”
Smith was placed on life support after she was declared brain dead in February, with medical staff aiming to keep her unborn child alive long enough for a possible delivery. The decision ignited fierce public debate, with critics wrongly attributing her continued care to Georgia’s pro-life legislation, specifically the state’s heartbeat law, known as the LIFE Act.
However, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr clarified that the LIFE Act does not require medical personnel to sustain life support for brain-dead pregnant women. Instead, Smith’s situation was governed by Georgia’s long-standing advanced directive law, which prohibits others from deciding to remove life-sustaining treatment if the woman herself has not made that specific choice while competent. This precedent predates the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Critics of pro-life policies seized on Smith’s case to attack Georgia’s abortion restrictions, but the facts tell a more complicated story. There is no indication Smith had ever considered terminating her pregnancy. Her mother, while frustrated that she could not make the decision regarding life support, stated publicly that the baby was wanted. “He is a part of my daughter,” Newkirk said before the delivery.
Claims that the child could not survive, or that his life would be filled with suffering, have also proven unfounded. Medical research shows that in similar cases where pregnancy continues after maternal brain death, 77% of babies are born alive. Of those, 85% go on to have typical health outcomes by the age of 20 months.
Now that Chance has been born, his survival offers a powerful counterpoint to the narrative that his life was not worth preserving.
“This family’s tragic situation should never have been used as a cudgel in the abortion debate,” said one observer close to the case. “Two things can be true: Adriana Smith’s life mattered. Her son’s does, too.”
Chance’s birth marks the end of a difficult legal and emotional chapter for his family — and perhaps the beginning of a broader conversation about medical ethics, maternal directives, and how society values the most vulnerable lives.
