This message mentions forced pregnancy, death, and medical cruelty. While stories like this are important in understanding the true impact of abortion bans, if you need to avoid reading details, please take care of yourself.
I wake up every morning motivated and determined to lead EMILYs List in our mission to elect more women and fight for fundamental freedoms nationwide. But there are moments when I find it very, very difficult to be civil to our opponents. This is one of those moments.
NPR just published a story about Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse and mother who was declared brain-dead in February following a medical emergency. At the time, she was about two months pregnant — and because she lived in Georgia, where abortion is banned after six weeks, she has been kept on life support ever since. Under Georgia law, brain death is considered legal death, but because of the state's draconian abortion law, doctors have been required to keep her body functioning for the sole purpose of continuing the pregnancy. Adriana has now been on life support for over three months, and is 21 weeks pregnant. Her five-year-old son still visits her at the hospital. Her mother describes it as "torture."
Georgia's abortion ban is keeping a brain-dead woman on life support to carry a pregnancy because her doctors are afraid that taking her off life support could lead to their arrest.
I will have this story in my heart the next time I hear a Republican falsely claim to be "pro-life" or "pro-family," or describe their abortion bans as "common sense" legislation. I will think about Adriana, and I'll think of her five-year-old son, sitting at her bedside, watching machines keep his mother's body alive months after her heart stopped beating. How will this be explained to him one day? Will it feel like "common sense" or "family values" to him then?
This is not a fringe case or a theoretical debate. It's a devastating reality made possible by laws written by politicians who do not care about women — not their lives, not their dignity, and not their deaths.
This story is an unmitigated tragedy. Adriana and her family deserve so much better. This is not about gestational weeks or legal exceptions. It's about control. It's about who has the power to make choices about our bodies, our futures, and our families. In Georgia right now, that power belongs to lawmakers who treat women like incubators.
It's as simple as this, Harris: For Republicans, the cruelty is the point. The only way to end this cruelty and restore the rights that will protect women is to get the GOP out of power.
I hope you are as determined as I am to elect women and take back power from the extremists who caused this tragedy. May Adriana Smith rest in peace, and may her story galvanize us to fight harder.
Thank you for taking a stand,
Jessica Mackler (she/her/hers) President, EMILYs List
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