The baby born to a brain-dead Georgia woman whose family was forced to keep her on life support for four months to comply with the state’s strict anti-abortion laws remains hospitalized six months later and is not doing well, his family said.
Adriana Smith’s son Chance April Newkirk weighed just 1 pound, 13 ounces when he was delivered by emergency C-section in June. He has remained in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Atlanta’s Northside Hospital ever since so his lungs could develop.
Though the baby has since gained weight, his lungs have not kept pace with his growth, Smith’s mother wrote in an update to the family’s online fundraising appeal.
“It’s holiday season, and I’m very down,” wrote April Newkirk, the baby’s grandmother. “Chance is 11 pounds, [still] in the NIC unit, and will not be coming home soon.”
Smith, a 31-year-old nurse who already had one young son, was declared legally dead in February after suffering several cerebral blood clots. However, hospital personnel said taking the pregnant woman off life support would constitute aborting the baby, an interpretation that has raised a host of legal and ethical questions and spawned a range of expert opinions.
In August, the family reported that Chance weighed about 5 pounds and predicted he would be home sometime in the fall. But in her late November update, Newkirk said Chance is being moved to a new hospital for ongoing treatment, without naming the hospital.
The family’s fundraiser has so far raised more than $560,000 of the $600,000 requested.
“I want everyone to know that I’m very grateful for your prayers and help,” Newkirk wrote. “Continue to pray, because God has the final say-so.”
With News Wire Services
