Family and friends gathered at Fairfield Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, on Saturday, June 28th, to honor the life of Adriana Smith, a 31-year-old registered nurse whose story has stirred national attention. Declared brain dead in February while nine weeks pregnant, Smith was kept on life support for months, not by medical choice, but due to Georgia’s strict abortion law.
On June 13th, nearly four months after she was hospitalized, her baby boy, Chance, was delivered via emergency Caesarian section. Weighing just 1 pound, 13 ounces, he was immediately transferred to the NICU, where he remains in critical care.
Smith was taken off life support on June 17th, days after her son’s birth.
At her memorial service, streamed live on Facebook, loved ones paid tribute to the young mother. Her younger sister reflected emotionally on their bond.
“I just wanna say that I’m thankful for the time that I spent with her, and I’m thankful for everything that she’s taught me. Her love, her kindness, her wisdom,” she said tearfully. “So I hope that I can follow in her footsteps. Besides that, I’m thankful for her.”
Her mother, April Newkirk, still grappling with grief, told 11Alive, “My daughter should be burying me… If I could say one more thing to her, I guess I would tell her that I love her and that she was a great daughter.”
Smith suffered multiple brain blood clots in February. By February 19th, she was declared brain dead. However, under Georgia’s abortion law, enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, terminating a pregnancy is not allowed once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which usually occurs around six weeks.
The law only allows abortion in medical emergencies or if the pregnancy is medically futile. Doctors told the family that despite her brain death, Smith wasn’t considered in danger under the law and could not be removed from life support until the baby reached viability.
This legal gray area left her family devastated, forced to wait for months while she remained on machines to keep her pregnancy going. Though her baby, Chance, is expected to survive, the emotional toll has been immense.
A GoFundMe launched to help with medical bills and funeral expenses has raised over $460,000 toward its $490,000 goal.
Now, Adriana Smith is being remembered for her love of family, her service as a nurse, and the courage she showed in life and death. Her story has reignited the debate about reproductive rights, medical ethics, and the human cost of restrictive abortion laws.
