‘This Is Cruelty’: Ayanna Pressley Shares Story Of Constituent’s Body Turned Into An ‘Incubator’

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During House floor remarks on Thursday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) shared a story about a constituent who remains on life support despite being brain-dead because she is pregnant.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share the story of Adriana Smith. Adriana Smith was

00:06a 30-year-old nurse from Georgia, mother of a vibrant five-year-old boy. She

00:11started to experience debilitating headaches and she sought medical care.

00:14She was discharged, her pain dismissed, as is so often the case in this country

00:20and certainly in our health care system for black women. The next morning Adriana

00:25woke up gasping for air and was taken to Emory Hospital where she was declared

00:29brain dead. There are no words to provide healing for a pain this deep. A dedicated

00:38and loving mother, a compassionate nurse, gone at the age of 30. The days that

00:43followed Adriana's family and son should have been able to make a solemn

00:49independent decision about what happened next as they celebrated her life, as they

00:53mourned this devastating loss, as they pieced their lives back together and began

00:58helping their five-year-old cope with the grief and loss of his precious mother.

01:05But the state of Georgia denied Adriana her bodily autonomy and dignity in death. The days and weeks

01:12that followed, her family found themselves in a desperate battle with Emory Hospital. The hospital

01:17believed that the anti-abortion bill that Georgia enacted in 2022 following the gutting of Roe v. Wade tied

01:26the hospital's hands, mandating that Adriana's body, her brain dead body, remain hooked to machines, not

01:34because there was any chance of survival. She had already transitioned, but because Adriana was nine

01:41weeks pregnant. About a month past a missed period, Adriana's body has been turned into an incubator.

01:48An incubator with no medical rationale, no ethical reason, and no compassion.

01:56Mr. Speaker, from the days of enslavement, black women's bodies have been subject to medical abuse,

02:02assault, and degradation in this country. We are more likely to die on childbirth. We are routinely

02:08denied medical care. We are dehumanized. And like the case of Adriana Smith, our bodies and our dignity

02:14are desecrated in death. This is cruelty. The latest episode in a long history of the experimentation and

02:23exploitation of black bodies. I grieve for Adriana's family for the torture they are experiencing,

02:29layered with the daily uncertainty they are navigating as they try to do right by their daughter

02:33and lay her to rest peacefully. Her parents are by her bedside. Her five-year-old asks,

02:39when will mommy wake up? Adriana should be here today. Her blood clots treated, her voice trusted,

02:47her pain believed. She should be decorating a nursery for her little son with her family

02:53and celebrating her son's last day of kindergarten. But Adriana's body lies hooked to machines in a

02:59hospital bed as part of an unjust medical experiment for more than three months. No family should have to

03:09endure this. None of us are free until all of us are free. I yield.

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