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A woman in the US state of Georgia was kept alive artificially because she was pregnant.
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In the US state of Georgia, a brain-dead woman was kept alive artificially for months so that her unborn child could be saved. Last Friday, the baby, weighing 800 grams, was born.
In the US state of Georgia, a woman was diagnosed with brain death following a medical emergency in February. Nevertheless, she was kept on life support for over three months because she was pregnant at the time. The goal was to give the unborn child enough time to grow so that it could be delivered safely.
Last Friday, the child was delivered by caesarean section, according to American media reports. The decision to keep the woman alive was made by hospital officials without consulting the woman's family.
The baby was born after about six months of pregnancy, weighed 800 grams and is now being cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit. Life-sustaining measures for the mother are to be discontinued in the coming days.
In Georgia, abortions after the sixth week are prohibited unless there are fetal abnormalities or documented cases of rape and incest.
The mother of the brain-dead woman told WXIA-TV in May: "We didn't have a choice or a say. We want the baby. But the decision should have been left to us - not the state."
The Sistersong organization, which campaigns for the abortion rights of African-American women, sees the case as problematic. The executive director told the AP news agency that the family should have the right to decide on medical decisions.
Instead, the family suffered over 90 days of re-traumatization, high medical costs and emotional distress without being able to find a solution.
The Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, signed an almost complete ban on abortion in 2019. However, this only came into force after the US Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling in 2022 that guaranteed women the constitutional right to abortion.
