When I said they see women as nothing but incubators, ...

[Scooter]

... I didn't think they would take me this literally:

The State of Georgia Dehumanizes A Black Mother Into An Incubator
How Georgia’s Abortion Ban Has Turned a Brain-Dead Mother Into a State-Controlled Incubator

In Georgia, it is illegal to harvest the organs of someone who died without their consent. The law honors bodily autonomy even in death. Yet somehow, under Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, a woman declared brain dead has less autonomy than a corpse.

This is not a dystopian horror film. This is the real-life nightmare of Adriana Smith—a 30-year-old Black mother and registered nurse from Atlanta. Let’s Address This.

In early February, Adriana—nine weeks pregnant—developed excruciating headaches. She went to a local hospital, but like far too many Black women in America, her pain was dismissed. She was released with basic medication, when she should have been kept overnight. Hours later, she was rushed back to the hospital—unconscious. By the time doctors diagnosed what was wrong, it was too late. Adriana was brain dead.

This was more 90 days ago.

But the state of Georgia has refused to let her die. In 2019, Georgia’s “Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act,” more accurately described as the “Forced Incubation Law,” was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp. It bans abortions after six weeks—before most people even know they’re pregnant. Because Adriana was nine weeks pregnant when declared brain dead, Georgia doctors—citing the state’s abortion ban—have kept her body artificially alive for over 90 days.

Their goal: to bring the fetus to 32 weeks.

That cruel law has transformed a vibrant nurse and mother into a state-mandated breeding vessel. This isn’t pro-life. This is forced pregnancy. This is reproductive tyranny. And for Black women, this injustice against Adriana Smith is a prime example of why Black women suffer 300% the maternal mortality rate as the national average.

Never mind that the fetus has already been reported to have developmental complications and likely will not survive on its own. Never mind that Adriana’s family is forced to foot the hospital bills for forced life extension they never sought and don’t want. Never mind that Adriana’s wishes, her humanity, and her dignity have been completely erased.

This is all happening because Republicans believe a six-week-old embryo has more rights than the woman who carries it.

This cruelty is by design. And it’s how MAGA operates.

Just a few months ago I wrote about how six white MAGA men in South Carolina proposed a bill to execute women for having abortions. Meanwhile, since the fall of Roe, maternal mortality has skyrocketed. Rape victims are being denied emergency abortions. Pregnant women with nonviable fetuses are being forced to suffer life-threatening infections rather than receive lifesaving care. Such was the horrific and painful death of another Black woman from Georgia, Amber Thurman.

These deaths are the result of deliberate policy choices by extremist MAGA Republicans who care more about controlling women than they do actually listening to healthcare professionals about medical science. And in Adriana Smith’s case, even brain death is not enough for her bodily autonomy to be respected.

MAGA’s war on abortion isn’t about life. It’s about control. We must speak up.

[BoSoxGal]

Hopefully her family finds a good med mal lawyer and wins millions from the physician and hospital whose negligence killed this woman and is ultimately going to kill her fetus. And that they should never have to pay a penny of the unwanted medical care being provided to her body which is allowing her dying fetus to suffer unnecessarily.

[Big RR]

This is confusing; generally, the hospital and doctors cannot do anything without consent of either the patient and, if consent is not given, have to get a court order. I wonder if this law provides otherwise. It is pretty disgusting, but it bothers me more that doctors can unilaterally decide on what the law requires and enforce a curse of treatment that neither the patient nor her family wants (as the first post states was done). FWIW, it also bothers me that a court can order this, but at least it requires some oversight outside of those who have a financial interest.

But that's what you get from those "individual freedom-loving" MAGA types.

[Sue U]

This is confusing; generally, the hospital and doctors cannot do anything without consent of either the patient and, if consent is not given, have to get a court order. I wonder if this law provides otherwise. It is pretty disgusting, but it bothers me more that doctors can unilaterally decide on what the law requires and enforce a curse of treatment that neither the patient nor her family wants (as the first post states was done). FWIW, it also bothers me that a court can order this, but at least it requires some oversight outside of those who have a financial interest.

But that's what you get from those "individual freedom-loving" MAGA types.

Apt typo is apt.

[Big RR]

Apt typo is apt.

It's a gift.

[MajGenl.Meade]

This is disgusting and inhuman (!) in every respect. I can't think of anything I've heard of that's more awful. Stupid words perhaps. Shameful. Cruel. Immoral. It makes me sick

[Burning Petard]

I am sorry to see that much of the medical treatment culture is similar to what I experienced twenty years ago. At that time my mother was comatose in a for-profit hospital in Independence, Missouri after a heart attack and stroke. The hospital management said they needed specific instructions from her family. The patient's four children, and their spouses, including me, met together with three authority figures on staff at the hospital. We were presented with the facts about my mother's condition as they choose to reveal it to us and presented us with a list of options and told us we must approve one of them. They left us alone to talk about it. It was a heartfelt and painful discussion. We understood we were considering possibly killing the patient by neglect. We understood it was our choice, our responsibility.

We agreed by unanimous consensus "Do Not Resuscitate." Those three words were placed on the cover of her chart at the foot of her bed in our presence.

The spouse of my brother was also the head of pediatric nursing in that hospital. Had been for several years. My mother recovered. She was released from the hospital about a week latter and lived for another 8 years. Those remaining years were burdened with various manifestations of dementia, but also included many instances of joy and interactions with her family.

But that daughter-n-law who worked in the hospital said she looked at mom's chart a couple of days before she was released. That was not authorized by the rules, but she as a head nurse had ways of getting around the rules. The chart recorded that about 12 hours after we agreed on 'DNR' my mother WAS resuscitated, and then again about 24 hours after that. Based on long term results, the treatment was successful.

But why in any ethical or legal universe were we, the family, put thought the HELL of making that decision if it was just ignored anyway?

snailgate.

[BoSoxGal]

DNR is not 'killing a patient by neglect' - I'm sorry if the personnel you spoke with in that process left you to feel that way about the decision.

Having now worked several years as a hospice caregiver, I am unsurprised that you might have encountered medical folks who oozed such attitudes. I've been shocked to find people in the medical profession who specifically chose to work in hospice care and yet who make themselves an obstacle to a dying patient's peaceful end. The last beloved elderly lady I cared for actually had suppositories forced up her anus in the final days of her life by an idiotic hospice nurse because her body wasn't defecating - something that is part of the natural dying process when you quit eating and your organs are slowly shutting down your body quits making waste on a regular schedule. I was shocked a nurse working hospice apparently didn't grasp this and would force ANY kind of medical intervention on a dying woman. This happened in her own bed in her daughter's home, so we are not safe from these people anywhere. This is why I am 1000% in support of medical aid in dying legislation.

CPR as done in a hospital or the field by medical professionals is a very traumatic insult to the human body and it is unsuccessful in all but a small percentage of cases - this is why most doctors I know have no desire to ever be resuscitated if they should suffer a cardiovascular event outside a hospital. Even if CPR is conducted in the hospital setting with all the greatest equipment and by expert professionals, the number of people who recover completely following a resuscitative event is low - most will be brain damaged to some degree and the vast majority die. It is not anything whatsoever like it is depicted on TV or in movies, where the patient's heart is stopped one moment and they are fully conscious chatting to their family just moments after CPR. Your mother's case happening in the hospital is the best case scenario and it sounds like it turned out nicely for her - but that is also a matter of opinion from one person to the next, because some would rather not suffer the ravages of dementia if they could have a quicker transition from this world to the next.

This very fine article discusses these fraught issues about CPR, and especially for older patients with significant health issues. I recommend reading it and I cannot recommend strongly enough that those of us in our last chapters have our wishes memorialized in writing while we are still of sound mind. Most states provides living will paperwork free which can be filled out and registered with one's primary physician, family and any hospital one is admitted to for medical care. I used to do this paperwork for my estate planning clients free of charge. Having those documents in place will mean that one's beloved family members will never have to sit in a room and make this decision for us, and that is a loving gift we can give them.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... during-cpr

I have been contemplating for some time now getting my first ever tattoo, which would be a nice design but of DNR on my chest where first responders cannot fail to see it. But as you pointed out, sometimes (too often) medical professionals cannot be trusted to abide by the wishes of patients. I hope that if I ever suffer a cardiac event it happens in such a setting that it is just too late for any resuscitative efforts to be in any way successful when somebody finds me.

A couple of weeks ago I lost a very dear friend - the son in law of the elderly lady I mentioned above - who dropped dead in his kitchen while preparing to take his dogs out for a walk, in the very same week that his GP had given him a clean bill of health at his annual exam. His partner (the lady's daughter) came home from work after getting a ride from a family member when he failed to pick her up and she couldn't reach him. She found him laying on the kitchen floor, surrounded by their little dogs who were standing vigil by his body. Knowing him as well as I did after three years of close friendship and serious conversations about end of life issues, I know he would have been well pleased to exit this world in that fashion - only thing better would have been if it happened while he was sleeping.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I've done CPR courses a number of times either through work or my time as a SCUBA instructor. What those courses do not teach is how to handle guilt when CPR is ineffective. My friend Mike and I gave CPR to Stan for two hours in the back of a Chevy Suburban while Stan's lover Ian drove us to the hospital. My last memory of Stan is seeing him being paddled in the ER before they closed the doors on us. Stan died. That was 40 years ago. And I think that for about 30 years I thought of Stan almost weekly and wondered if we had done it right. I still do (and of course I am again today) but far less frequently. As you get older you accept more easily that doing your best is, in fact, all you can ask of yourself.

[Scooter]

I have been contemplating for some time now getting my first ever tattoo, which would be a nice design but of DNR on my chest where first responders cannot fail to see it.

I don't know if this is another one of those cases where we can't trust TV medicine, but I remember an episode of one of my favs (Chicago Med???) where a patient had a DNR tattoo and the docs said they couldn't view it as an expression of the patient's current wishes absent an actual medical directive. False info for dramatic purposes, or a public service announcement written into the script?

I'd consult with an actual medical professional about whether your wishes would be respected this way, before going ahead.

[MajGenl.Meade]

It might stand for "Do Not Remove". Or "Department of Natural Resources".

[Joe Guy]

Or 'Do Not Refrain'.