Penny Smith, known on the internet as “Hospice Nurse Penny,” recently posted this message to her 2 million followers on social media:
“Stop. Saying. She. Gave. Birth. Stop it. Stop trying to normalize the removal of Adriana Smith’s baby by claiming that she gave birth. No, she didn’t. No, she did not,” Smith wrote. “Saying that she gave birth or that she delivered the baby implies that she somehow participated. And in order to do that, she would have to be alive — which she wasn’t. A baby was removed from her dead body. That is all. That’s what happened.
“You know, I’m old enough to remember when Chinese women were forced to have abortions by their government for population control and how outraged Americans were that the Chinese government had that much control over women’s bodies,” Smith said. “But here we are forcing women to incubate babies even after they’re dead. It’s disgusting. It’s f*cking ‘Handmaid‘s Tale.’ This type of situation should never ever be allowed to happen to another biological female again. Never ever ever ever.”
After experiencing severe headaches in February, Adriana Smith (no relation to Penny Smith), a registered nurse in Atlanta, went to the hospital twice. Days later, she was found unresponsive in her home. Smith was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered blood clots in her brain. She was declared brain dead.
Smith, 30, was two months pregnant with her second child. But because of Georgia’s draconian six-week abortion ban, Smith, against her family’s wishes, was kept on life support for four months to keep the baby alive. On June 13, her son, weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces, was delivered prematurely via an emergency Cesarean section.
“He’s expected to be OK,” April Newkirk, Smith’s mother, told an Atlanta TV station about her grandson, Chance. “He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying for him.”
On June 17, Smith was removed from a ventilator, ending another sorrowful chapter in the Republican war against women’s bodies.
It should also be noted that Smith received more medical attention after she was declared brain dead than she did in the days before her boyfriend woke up to find her gasping for breath. During two visits to the hospital, Smith was given medication but no tests that might have revealed the danger that was discovered only when it was too late to save her.
In 2019, Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, the law that mandated that Smith’s body should be kept viable because she was pregnant. It was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court in 2020. “By banning pre-viability abortions, [Georgia‘s law] violates the constitutional right to privacy, which, in turn, inflicts per se irreparable harm on Plaintiffs,” Judge Steve Jones wrote in his opinion.
Everything changed three years ago this month when the conservative-led Supreme Court unsettled nearly 50 years of settled law by overturning Roe v. Wade and allowing states to severely curtail or prohibit abortion. More than 20 states now have abortion restrictions or bans.
Of course, the overturning of the 1973 law that legalized abortion did not end the procedure. Women still need health care, and abortion is health care. In fact, abortions have increased since the Dobbs decision that outlawed Roe, but many women have been forced to travel thousands of miles from home to receive what was once a constitutional right in their own communities.
Among those unable to seek care elsewhere are some women who have faced dire consequences. According to a ProPublica investigation published last year, “pregnant women have bled to death, succumbed to fatal infections, and wound up in morgues with what medical examiners recorded were ‘products of conception’ still in their bodies.” In other cases, women have had to wait days or even weeks before they were sick enough to receive an abortion in states that allow the procedure to save the life of the mother.
These laws aren’t pro-life, nor do they protect women or children.
On the day that Smith was taken off life support, Democratic Representatives Nikema Williams of Georgia, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Sara Jacobs of California introduced a House resolution that recognized what Smith endured and condemned abortion restrictions and bans that can lead to harmful or deadly outcomes.
This Saturday, Smith will finally be laid to rest, her official date of death listed as Feb.19. For four months, her body was governed by laws often made by men who demand control of a woman’s bodily autonomy and, in this case, even beyond death. What should have been one family’s private tragedy should be recognized for what it is — an unthinkable atrocity all but guaranteed to happen again.
This is an excerpt from Outtakes, a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. Sign up to get Outtakes in your inbox each week.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com.