A brain-dead woman's baby was born by cesarean section, the baby's grandmother said, after the hospital said her daughter's body had to be put on life support because of abortion laws in the US state of Georgia.
Adriana Smith's baby, named Chance, was born prematurely on June 13, Adriana's mother told a local television station 11 Alive.
The boy, weighing 800 grams, is now in the neonatal intensive care unit, said April Newkirk, the boy's grandmother.
"It is expected to be good."
"He is fighting, we are praying for him," she told the media network, an affiliate of NBC News.
Newkirk added that her daughter, a 31-year-old nurse, was then taken off life support.
"It's hard to accept all this.
"I'm her mother. I shouldn't be burying my daughter. She should be burying me," Newkirk said.
The BBC has contacted the hospital for comment.
They have previously declined to comment on individual cases, saying their top priority is "patient safety and well-being."
Adriana Smith went to another hospital in February for severe headaches, where she was given medication and sent home, her mother said earlier.
The next day, he woke up with difficulty breathing.
Doctors at Emory University Hospital determined that she had blood clots in her brain and declared her brain dead, Newkirk said.
At that point, the due date was just over three months away.
Her family claims that doctors at Emory told them they could not take her off life support because the state prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be heard, around the sixth week of pregnancy.
Newkirk said at the time that her grandson might be blind, unable to walk, or even survive due to her daughter's health complications.
The decision to keep her on life support "should have been left to the family," Newkirk told the same NBC affiliate in May.
Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, signed a near-total ban on abortion in the state in 2019.
However, the law did not take effect until the US Supreme Court ruled in 2022 to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling, which guaranteed women the constitutional right to abortion.
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