Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, welcome back to the nonprofits.
Speaker 2: So I didn't think human incubators were going to be
Speaker 2: a thing, but it's twenty five and it's a new
Speaker 2: fashion trend. So Tracy, let's talk about all the very
Speaker 2: very bad things gotcha.
Speaker 3: Something is rotten in the state of Georgia. This year,
Speaker 3: a thirty year old woman by the name of Adriana
Speaker 3: Smith met her end by brain death on February nineteen.
Speaker 3: That said miss Smith was approximately two months pregnant at
Speaker 3: the time of her demise, and Georgia doctors have informed
Speaker 3: her mother that until Adriana's pregnancy has reached a term
Speaker 3: length where delivery can be attempted, her family has no
Speaker 3: say in what to do with her body. The body
Speaker 3: will continue to be used as an incubator. Reminiscent of
Speaker 3: a particular Hulu show, This nightmare is horrifying, to say
Speaker 3: the least, and should give us all cause to panic,
Speaker 3: as any government that can posthumously use your body as
Speaker 3: an incubator for the unborn can also posthumously use your
Speaker 3: body as a blood production device, or steal your organs
Speaker 3: from your family after death, or any other number of
Speaker 3: horrifying tableaus. The old adage I've heard about pregnant people
Speaker 3: having less rights than a corpse seems to fall flat
Speaker 3: when turns out they only have less rights than non
Speaker 3: pregnant corpses.
Speaker 1: So super fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry, everybody, this is the reality we are now
Speaker 4: living in. So to be clear, So, Adriana was three
Speaker 4: years old and she was declared brain dead in February
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty five. Despite she is leally dead, she
Speaker 4: has been kept on life support due to Georgia's strict
Speaker 4: abortion laws, which prohibit abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected,
Speaker 4: typically around six weeks into pregnancy.
Speaker 1: I live in Florida.
Speaker 2: This is the same law this situation reads. Is profound concerns.
Speaker 2: Profound concerns about Balie Atonmy as Smith's family has been
Speaker 2: denied the right to make decisions regarding her medical care,
Speaker 2: highlighting the extent to which reproductive laws can override personal
Speaker 2: and familiar agency even after death. So there's a little
Speaker 2: bit more about this on an ap News article that
Speaker 2: I put in in our links.
Speaker 1: But I'm deeply, deeply concerned.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys remember Terry Shaibo back
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands, where she was a woman
Speaker 2: that there was a big legal battle to keep her alive,
Speaker 2: alive or not on life support, because it was two
Speaker 2: separate families on different sides, and that was a big
Speaker 2: discussion about you know, what what people intend and how
Speaker 2: you know, even just you know, families arguing about this. Now,
Speaker 2: let's include the state. Let's include the fact that you
Speaker 2: got pregnant and like Audreyana did can and it's just
Speaker 2: basically an incubator, which I find very disrespectful to her
Speaker 2: especially this was not her intention as to just respect
Speaker 2: her as like a human being, and also to like
Speaker 2: the state has effectively told her family, you don't get
Speaker 2: to decide what happens with your loved ones course and
Speaker 2: what you want to do. We get to hold onto
Speaker 2: it until it does the baby making thing. And by
Speaker 2: the way, we're going to hand this child onto you
Speaker 2: that you didn't really have a discussion on if you
Speaker 2: wanted to raise it or not. We're going to make
Speaker 2: that decision for you because I was going to have
Speaker 2: to take care of that kid.
Speaker 1: So Rob rob so who putting putting that, you know,
Speaker 1: point forward?
Speaker 2: Who is financially responsible for this child? And when it's
Speaker 2: brought the term under the state and forced life support,
Speaker 2: like who's.
Speaker 1: Going to pay for it?
Speaker 5: Presumably the husband and the dad. As I I've been
Speaker 5: thinking about this one because this is a curious situation
Speaker 5: because she's already brain dead, which is a separate language
Speaker 5: point that it might bring up another time where it's like,
Speaker 5: why do we say brain dead because we define brain
Speaker 5: dead to be actually dead and we're only using it
Speaker 5: to still mean the body is still an incubator. But sure, fine, whatever,
Speaker 5: semantics are very important.
Speaker 1: I almost feel like.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I hope you can convince me otherwise. Maybe.
Speaker 5: I actually don't know if I find this as appalling
Speaker 5: as I did a couple days ago, and I want
Speaker 5: to explain why.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Rob, go ahead.
Speaker 5: Most pro choice would be in mine as well, would
Speaker 5: be the idea of she should have the right of
Speaker 5: the say of her own body, especially in the case
Speaker 5: of a parasite. But she's not using her own body anymore,
Speaker 5: so it's not it's not a it's not a typical case,
Speaker 5: so I can see why this has even come up
Speaker 5: at all.
Speaker 3: So I don't see it as yeah.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna The only quoble I'm going to point
Speaker 2: out though, is that I and the article did not
Speaker 2: mention what the intention was with the fetus if you
Speaker 2: know she had ended her life and that she was
Speaker 2: no longer able to participate in that decision process. So
Speaker 2: that's one conversation that we could be having, and two
Speaker 2: that the state is now removing the people that might
Speaker 2: know her intentions involvement in making that decision.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, which is also super bad. And to actually
Speaker 5: answer your question from earlier, who's going to pay for it?
Speaker 5: There is, there is, there is a father. Presumably they're
Speaker 5: going to pay for it. I was going to say,
Speaker 5: this is the clearest position of pro birth ever, because
Speaker 5: they're going to get that baby by any means necessary.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to throw in the spanner of just like, ah,
Speaker 5: most of my pro choice arguments are for the person
Speaker 5: using their actual body, of which he's not using your
Speaker 5: body anymore.
Speaker 2: So like I'm going to do my job and give
Speaker 2: quibbles and ask follow up questions.
Speaker 1: My job. See, how do you feel about this? This
Speaker 1: is so great? I love living and a patriarchy. It's
Speaker 1: so great.
Speaker 3: It's fantastic. So Rob, I don't see this as I
Speaker 3: don't see this as a discussion where being pro life
Speaker 3: or being pro choice or being pro birth, or being
Speaker 3: pro whatever in that particular discussion, I don't find that
Speaker 3: to be relevant, and I think you said something to
Speaker 3: that effect. I don't find it to be relevant at all.
Speaker 3: The as humanists, which I believe all in the panel
Speaker 3: are one of the things that you that I've dealt
Speaker 3: with in my journey along humanism is okay, Well, the
Speaker 3: person who is dead is no longer using their body,
Speaker 3: so why don't we eat it. Why don't we supply
Speaker 3: it to people who would do terrible things to it
Speaker 3: as a substitute for doing that to people who have
Speaker 3: who are still in their body. The reason that we
Speaker 3: allow you to have control to a certain extent and
Speaker 3: to have your family have control over your body after
Speaker 3: you die is because that is conducive to your mental
Speaker 3: health while you are alive. To guarantee that. Now they've
Speaker 3: removed her family from the decision making process, which is
Speaker 3: already part of a problem, and we don't have access,
Speaker 3: as you both have said, to her wishes at all.
Speaker 3: So this is a complete disregard for one of the
Speaker 3: core principles of the handling of bodies after death, that
Speaker 3: you ultimately get to decide. I don't get to take
Speaker 3: your organs, even though I need them after you die,
Speaker 3: unless you consent to it beforehand. Same thing with this
Speaker 3: child or this fetus we want to refer to it,
Speaker 3: I don't really care U. Unless we have the express
Speaker 3: permission of Adriana before her death, we don't get to
Speaker 3: do this. This is this is organ donorship in the
Speaker 3: extreme against against her will because we don't have access
Speaker 3: to her will.
Speaker 5: I'm really glad you specifically said organ donorship because as
Speaker 5: we were bringing this up, I wonder it's like, what
Speaker 5: if we have no idea what she is and I'll
Speaker 5: bring this back around, what if she was an organ donor.
Speaker 5: I could see a thing saying, well, she's just we're
Speaker 5: just going to donate the entire body as the incubator.
Speaker 5: And I completely agree. Yes, You're completely right in that
Speaker 5: the thing that I am now convinced of is not
Speaker 5: necessarily the thing that is actually happening, like the incubation ship.
Speaker 5: It's the everyone around her has been pulled away from
Speaker 5: their ability to participate within the death process. The state
Speaker 5: is interfering.
Speaker 4: That is.
Speaker 5: That is the problem that I've now had because I
Speaker 5: thought wondered, like, well, what if what if this was
Speaker 5: happening to you in not a particularly religious sense, would
Speaker 5: other people be upset? And then I thought extreme organ donor,
Speaker 5: and like in that choice, I don't know if I
Speaker 5: bring up.
Speaker 2: A really you bring a really good point. Someone that
Speaker 2: lost a very dear friend that they were totally brain dead,
Speaker 2: that their mother had to make the terrible decision, you know,
Speaker 2: heartbreaking decision to beat them off of life support because
Speaker 2: she was a trained nurse and knew what the actually
Speaker 2: what was actually going on, which we're talking about like
Speaker 2: brain dead versus like death death. You know, I have
Speaker 2: to imagine that what you what you brought up about,
Speaker 2: like not being able to go through the process, you
Speaker 2: are delaying it and and then you're adding the burden on.
Speaker 1: Of a child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're adding that to what is already a traumatic
Speaker 2: experience where a young woman she's only thirty, you know,
Speaker 2: is you know, not alive anymore. And the state has said,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, by the way, uh, screw you on actually
Speaker 2: mourning for your child and everything that's going on. We're
Speaker 2: going to keep her alive, you know, technically so she
Speaker 2: can you know, birth, you know, incubate and birth this baby.
Speaker 1: It's disgusting one.
Speaker 2: And too that the lack of understanding of mental health
Speaker 2: and trauma that happens to people if you're forced in
Speaker 2: certain situations is not may not be conducive in the
Speaker 2: long term to how this child is raised, and we
Speaker 2: don't know the long term consequences of those things.
Speaker 1: I'm hopefully these.
Speaker 2: People are kind people and won't raise their child, you know,
Speaker 2: and understand you know, the situation going forward, but we
Speaker 2: don't know that, and there's a lot of unknowns here
Speaker 2: and the fact that the state is saying like, well,
Speaker 2: screw you, you don't get to make that decision anymore.
Speaker 2: We're gonna make this, you know, use this woman's body
Speaker 2: as an incubator, which she doesn't have the right right
Speaker 2: or not to consent to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is she still a person? You know? You brought
Speaker 1: up a good point. Is this personhood?
Speaker 5: Yeah? If this was an article that came about due
Speaker 5: to the wishes of a family that's doing this to
Speaker 5: their own to their own family, then I think it
Speaker 5: would end up being extremely different. But Tracy has well
Speaker 5: compelled me, and the problem is that it is the state,
Speaker 5: because then that's why we do end up having questions like, well,
Speaker 5: who's going to pay for it? Because if the family
Speaker 5: had decided to do this, which they did not, then
Speaker 5: like clearly that's being taken care of. But because the
Speaker 5: state is getting involved, then people are being held hostage
Speaker 5: into being forced into positions that may not even be
Speaker 5: aware of or ready for right.
Speaker 2: And that's that's the thing that you know, kind of
Speaker 2: you know, is the sticking point with this particular case.
Speaker 2: And like and Tracy, you brought up like, by the way,
Speaker 2: Adriana is a woman of color. Yes, if this was
Speaker 2: being done let's just just say with like as you
Speaker 2: point out, like by a wealthy white woman and the
Speaker 2: exacciny was happening, would would we would there be more backlash,
Speaker 2: would they be more reactionary stuff? Or is it this
Speaker 2: whole idea that you know that still exists in the
Speaker 2: United States unfortunately that you know, people of color are.
Speaker 6: Lesson you know, So I don't know because I can't
Speaker 6: look into alternate universes where this may have happened to
Speaker 6: a wealthy white woman, and I don't know how wealthy
Speaker 6: Adriana was.
Speaker 3: But ultimately I think that this can all stem back
Speaker 3: to a in a built in bias against both people
Speaker 3: of color and women, and you know, due to intersectionality,
Speaker 3: especially women of color, where people of color and women
Speaker 3: often get sub subpar care, either because of flawed scientific
Speaker 3: understanding of how bodies work that have been infiltrated by
Speaker 3: racist ideologies, or just due to the infantilization of women
Speaker 3: in these spaces where it is thought that they can't
Speaker 3: make decisions for themselves. And I think that I don't
Speaker 3: know who. I think it would be. Adriana's mother is
Speaker 3: her next of kin, because that's who they interviewed in there.
Speaker 3: It could it could pull from an infantilization of her
Speaker 3: as well as Adriana.
Speaker 1: I can't speak to.
Speaker 3: Their rationale because there they aren't really giving one. They're
Speaker 3: just saying, according to these laws, we must do this well.
Speaker 2: Tracy, to be clear, we can make decisions for ourselves
Speaker 2: because we have that hysteria wandering womb thing, So you
Speaker 2: need somebody else to come in and tell us how
Speaker 2: to make decisions. That's the rules, you know, Like that's
Speaker 2: the attitude of this idea that well, we're going to
Speaker 2: assume what Audrianna wanted, even regardless regardless if she was
Speaker 2: going to carry it, carried that baby to term. The
Speaker 2: state doesn't get to make the decision, because the whole
Speaker 2: idea of having mixed of chin is that you bestowed
Speaker 2: those wishes onto your family, and then they are the
Speaker 2: ones that can make knowing you the best what decisions
Speaker 2: that you would make for your body if you were,
Speaker 2: you know, standing outside yourself.
Speaker 1: I'm like, do this do that?
Speaker 5: As Tracy was saying, I think it was somewhere. I
Speaker 5: think I read this somewhere about this case. She went
Speaker 5: to the hospital. She went to the doctor and said
Speaker 5: that she had had pain, and then they I don't
Speaker 5: know if the article meant to be as flippant about
Speaker 5: it as it seems me, but she went in and
Speaker 5: said I've had pain, and then they gave her some
Speaker 5: pills and said go away. Probably not like that they
Speaker 5: gave yeah, And then to.
Speaker 4: Be fair, I've experienced that in the hospital, So the chronic.
Speaker 1: Pain, I've experienced that.
Speaker 2: So if she did experience that, not surprised, but also
Speaker 2: at the same time not great.
Speaker 3: It was only in the last few decades that women
Speaker 3: that female phenotypically female persons were used in clinical trial
Speaker 3: studies for medications. Prior to that, they were using primarily,
Speaker 3: if not exclusively, phenotypically male individuals and then just extrapolating that, Okay,
Speaker 3: so women are like little men, so we can just
Speaker 3: give them less. And then there's the built in stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not surprising to me this is happening
Speaker 3: in the Land of Traders. But there's the built in
Speaker 3: presupposition or pre preconceived notion that in a lot of
Speaker 3: doctors' minds that black people are just sturdier than white
Speaker 3: people are. And this hearkens back to a time when
Speaker 3: they were used as farming equipment regularly. And so when
Speaker 3: you have the intersectionality of thinking that a person of
Speaker 3: a specific race is a stir you're than a person
Speaker 3: of another race, as well as that you know, these
Speaker 3: people are infantilized and don't need as much medication, it
Speaker 3: can make.
Speaker 1: A really tough cross section there.
Speaker 2: For for we're considered to have a higher pain tolerance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pain subjective.
Speaker 6: Subjective measure that measure it several times, and I don't
Speaker 6: think they can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's completely subjective.
Speaker 2: So and and also too, like what kind of really
Speaker 2: really bothers me about this is the fact that that
Speaker 2: racial bias is built into it. This bias about woman
Speaker 2: is built into it that we are not automis people.
Speaker 1: We're basically incubators, uh and.
Speaker 2: Root mares under the current perspective of the people that
Speaker 2: are making these laws, you know, and I don't think
Speaker 2: there's enough appreciation for why this matters. But we can
Speaker 2: argue like what she wanted intend or not intended. I
Speaker 2: don't know this woman, I don't know her family. I
Speaker 2: don' not her intentions. But the fact that the state
Speaker 2: gets to come in and tell you what you can
Speaker 2: and cannot do with your body, to the extreme that
Speaker 2: your courts can be used. That's the most disgusting thing
Speaker 2: about this, because not only they're finding guests, you know,
Speaker 2: people you know that can have children, whether or not
Speaker 2: you know, we get to make the decisions that even
Speaker 2: after death, you don't get to make those choices.
Speaker 1: We're going to make them for you.
Speaker 3: I think that you're one hundred percent right. I think
Speaker 3: that both of you have hit on it, and we've
Speaker 3: talked about it several times that the biggest issue here
Speaker 3: is that we just don't have access to what Adriana
Speaker 3: thinks and if she I rob the thing you brought
Speaker 3: up about the organ donation, if she were registered as
Speaker 3: an organ donor and clicked the box that said, you know,
Speaker 3: all usable, then you know what, I would back the
Speaker 3: hell off, only in the.
Speaker 5: Case that the families were also down. That's that's I agree.
Speaker 3: I disagree with on that point. It's not they don't
Speaker 3: have a say in whether she can donate her organs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh no, no, that's true, because then it would
Speaker 5: just go to other people anyway. But that the reasonable.
Speaker 5: It's harder in this particular case for that because then
Speaker 5: who has ownership of the baby. They still have to
Speaker 5: take ownership of the baby.
Speaker 3: But as as you said, the paternal figure.
Speaker 5: Right if they wanted it, I'm still saying that the
Speaker 5: family should have a say in what is going on
Speaker 5: to any extent because there's another person involved, presumably if
Speaker 5: they're going to try to get a live birth. I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you're saying, because they're going to be accepting
Speaker 3: custody of the child they get.
Speaker 1: To, which they are organ donating.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, okay, I see what you're saying. So there'd
Speaker 3: be a lot of fuzziness to.
Speaker 1: Navigate, right, But but it's all their choice.
Speaker 5: If this exact thing happened with their intention, I'm in
Speaker 5: But this also, as you said, because of just medical attention,
Speaker 5: should never have happened in the first place. We should
Speaker 5: never have even gotten to this position. It's unfortunate that
Speaker 5: they were in this position that we could argue about
Speaker 5: family or state, but it would have been really lovely
Speaker 5: if we never even got here.
Speaker 1: It would have been fantastic.
Speaker 3: The state has no business in this affair.
Speaker 2: So I just want to include a quote from the
Speaker 2: Ratcle from Monica SYSM Monica Simpson, exec director of such
Speaker 2: a song, the Lee Plantiff.
Speaker 1: And the lawsuit challenging Georgia's abortion law. Like so many women,
Speaker 1: Adriana spoke of herself.
Speaker 2: She's for us what she felt in our body, and
Speaker 2: as a healthcare provider, she knew how to navigate the
Speaker 2: medical system. Simpson said, noting that by the time that
Speaker 2: Smith was diagnosed, it was already too late. So the
Speaker 2: fact that she was diagnosed was, you know, something that
Speaker 2: was going to cause the situation to happen, and that
Speaker 2: she was pregnant by the time everything came to fruition,
Speaker 2: and the fact that rollbucks uh reprojector rights are rolling back,
Speaker 2: and the fact that she's a woman of color, it
Speaker 2: was too late.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a bummer of story everybody. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but this is.
Speaker 2: The reality of the world we're living in and if
Speaker 2: you want to know more about what the government is
Speaker 2: doing to re propractive with what rights in our current situation,
Speaker 2: please