30-Year-Old Pregnant Mother Declared Brain-Dead at 9 Weeks Pregnant Mandated to Remain on Life Support Under Georgia’s Cruel Abortion Ban

“This is cruelty. The latest episode in a long history of the experimentation and exploitation of Black bodies. I grieve for Adriana’s family. For the torture they are experiencing, layered with the daily uncertainty they are navigating as they try to do right by their daughter and lay her to rest peacefully. Her parents are by her bedside. Her 5-year-old asks when will mommy wake up.”

Video (YouTube)

WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Co-Chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus, delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor demanding justice for Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old pregnant mother who was declared brain dead in February and forcibly remains on life support due to Georgia’s abortion ban. She underscored that Adriana’s case is far too common in the unjust history of denying Black women their dignity, humanity, and right to bodily autonomy – and that GOP abortion bans such as Georgia’s deepen this pain and bar critical healthcare freedom.

A transcript of the Congresswoman’s remarks, as delivered, is available below, and the full video is available here.

Transcript: In Impassioned Speech, Pressley Calls for Justice for Adriana Smith, Condemns GOP’s Cruel Abortion Bans

U.S. House of Representatives

June 5, 2025

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share the story of Adriana Smith.

Adriana Smith was a 30-year-old nurse from Georgia. 

The mother of a vibrant 5-year-old boy. 

She started to experience debilitating headaches, and she sought medical care. 

She was discharged, her pain dismissed – as is so often the case in this country and certainly in our healthcare system for Black women. 

The next morning, Adriana woke up gasping for air and was taken to Emory Hospital where she was declared brain dead.

There are no words to provide healing for a pain this deep. 

A dedicated and loving mother, a compassionate nurse, gone at the age of 30. 

In the days that followed, Adriana’s family and son should have been able to make a solemn independent decision about what happened next as they celebrated her life, as they mourned this devastating loss, as they pieced their lives back together and began helping their 5-year-old cope with the grief and loss of his precious mother.

But the state of Georgia denied Adriana her bodily autonomy and dignity in death. In the days and weeks that followed her family found themselves in a desperate battle with Emory Hospital. 

The hospital believed that the anti-abortion bill that Georgia enacted in 2022 following the gutting of Roe v. Wade tied the hospital’s hands, mandating that Adriana’s body – her brain-dead body – remain hooked to machines, not because there was any chance of survival – she had already transitioned. 

But because Adriana was 9 weeks pregnant, about a month past a missed period. 

Adriana’s body has been turned into an incubator. 

An incubator with no medical rationale, no ethical reason, and no compassion.

Mr. Speaker, from the days of enslavement Black women’s bodies have been subject to medical abuse, assault, and degradation in this country. 

We are more likely to die in childbirth. We are routinely denied medical care. We are dehumanized. And like the case of Adriana Smith, our bodies and our dignity are desecrated in death.

This is cruelty. The latest episode in a long history of the experimentation and exploitation of Black bodies.

I grieve for Adriana’s family. For the torture they are experiencing, layered with the daily uncertainty they are navigating as they try to do right by their daughter and lay her to rest peacefully. 

Her parents are by her bedside. Her 5-year-old asks when will mommy wake up.

Adriana should be here today – her blood clots treated, her voice trusted, her pain believed. 

She should be decorating a nursery for her little son with her family and celebrating her son’s last day of kindergarten. 

But Adriana’s body lies hooked to machines, in a hospital bed as part of an unjust medical experiment for more than 3 months. 

No family should have to endure this. None of us are free until all of us are free. 

I yield.  

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