Thread by @LauraRbnsn

Okay, so, let's break this down.
Adriana Smith is braindead. That means there is no chance of recovery. She has no function in her entire brain, including the brain stem.
That means that all functions that keep Adriana alive are entirely artificial. Heart,
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/f…

lungs, hormones -- it all has to come from doctors. This isn't a coma. She's not unconscious. She's dead - except for machines.
When Smith died, she was nine weeks pregnant.
Now, the situation is that she is being kept on all those machines, against the wishes of her family,

with the possibility that the baby can be removed at 32 weeks that the fetus can be delivered and Smith can be allowed to die.
Let's go through some things.
1) It is completely legal in the United States, and indeed very common, for family or a living will to provide for a

person to be removed from life support in these circumstances. It's even legal to request someone be removed from life support if they're in a persistent vegetative state (so the brainstem still works, which Smith's doesn't.) Smith is dead. The fact that she is alive is

entirely artificial. There is no legal or ethical expectation that her family keep her breathing for any period of time -- except for her pregnancy.
2) The human uterus is not a moist damp space for an autonomous being to grow in. We like to talk about it this way because we

like to downplay the role women have in reproduction because we really, really hate women. But there are a thousand things that the woman's body does that keep the fetus growing -- adjust hormones, nutrients, attend to symptoms and fetal movement, etc. A dead body is not

a suitable replacement for a live one for fetal reasons. Everything Smith's body would usually do to bring the baby to term is now provided entirely by machines. It is anyone's guess if they can do it for this length of time. This is basically a medical experiment on a

human. The signs are already there that this fetus is not healthy.
3) To take Smith off of live support *would not be an abortion.* An abortion is terminating a pregnancy. Pregnancies usually end when a person dies. Smith is dead.

It is not unreasonable that her pregnancy would end *when her life did.*
Nothing about this process is natural, pro-human, pro-life, or pro-human dignity. This is basically a medical experiment on a woman and her child that this family never consented to.

Smith doesn't seem to have left a living will but even if she did it's not indicated at all it would be respected in this case. She's a science experiment now. And so is her child.
This isn't human dignity. This is Frankenstein. With someone's daughter and grandchild.

And to be clear:
I am HIGHLY sympathetic to any argument from the pro life community that resists the idea it's better for a fetus to die than be born disabled.
Disabled people are human. They have value.
But I think there is a HUGE difference between saying that a

disabled person deserves to live, as opposed to saying that a woman and child who, without mechanical intervention, would have died of natural causes, should instead be kept alive to see if the fetus can survive long enough to emerge from the womb and if it can

what kinds of physical limitations he has and whether this experiment is repeatable.
One is affirming the natural variance between humans within the limits of science and seeking to provide for their needs.
The latter is really just human experimentation, as far as I can tell.

https://x.com/LauraRbnsn/status/1924601560941633623