We're living in the Handmaid's Tale - Adriana Smith proves it's true

Metro

16-05-2025

It was morbid curiosity that saw me sat on my sofa one evening in 2019, watching in horror at season three, episode nine of The Handmaid's Tale.
For those unaware of the show (and book's) premise, it is set in a dystopian US, where fertility is on the decline, and those able to bear children are given as slaves (handmaids) to powerful couples.
In this episode, Ofmatthew (a handmaid) is left brain dead after but Gilead, the authoritarian state, hooked her up to life support because she was pregnant, refusing to let her die until she'd carried the baby to term.
I was repulsed. After all, they'd reduced this poor woman to nothing but a human incubator, using her purely for her womb. I remember thinking ' thank god it's not real' .
It was a horror story I could turn off before heading to bed, my internal monologue reminding me that it was all just fiction.
So you can imagine my disbelief when the story of Adriana Smith cropped up on my news feed.
Adriana Smith, a US-based 30-year-old mother and nurse was declared brain dead (meaning she is legally recognised as dead) after experiencing intense headaches in February, but has been kept on life support for three months because she's pregnant.
Like Ofmatthew, she's being kept alive just so she can birth a child. The Handmaid's Tale has finally become a reality.
This isn't what her family wants, but Georgia's strict anti-abortion law, which prevents you from terminating a pregnancy after just six weeks, means she will remain on a ventilator until the baby is able to be born.
This won't be anytime soon either. It's been reported that her medical team will wait until she's at least 32 weeks pregnant, even though babies have a 'viable' chance of survival outside the womb at 24 weeks.
Adriana is currently 21 weeks along.
Ever since the US overturned Roe vs Wade in 2022 – allowing women the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks – women have been saying 'we're living in the Handmaid's Tale'.
These words have fallen on deaf ears, with even more bills introduced with the goal of limiting a woman's right to choose. Adriana's story is a stark reminder of how close we are to slipping into a dystopian reality.
'It's torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there,' her mother, April Newkirk, lamented to Atlanta TV station WXIA.
Adriana's young son visits her in hospital but believes his mother is simply sleeping, a cruelty no child should ever have to suffer.
And of course, her family will likely be lumped with the ever increasing medical costs of keeping Adriana alive too – how unjust is that?
'She's pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born,' April added. 'This decision should've been left to us. Now we're left wondering what kind of life he'll have — and we're going to be the ones raising him.'
What is clear from her mother's words is that this pregnancy being allowed to continue benefits no-one. Certainly not Adriana, nor her son who cannot process his grief, nor the grandparents who will be responsible for this child.
When the finale of The Handmaid's Tale aired on May 3, Channel 4 revealed more than half of Brits (56%) feel closer to a dystopian future than ever before, with the current global political climate closely mirroring the atrocities faced on the show.
I'm not surprised by these statistics. It only takes looking back to a Grey's Anatomy episode from 2006 to see how much things have changed. In the episode '17 Seconds', 19-year-old Kendra Thomas is shot and left brain dead. She is pregnant and her parents want to leave her life support turned on until she has the child, which they want to raise.
The doctors agree this is a terrible option, with Addison in particular explaining how irresponsible this would be. In the end, the parents decide to switch off the life support.
I dread to think the kind of criminal charges those doctors would be up against today. I don't even know if that episode would be allowed to be made.
I fundamentally believe that Brits should be worried. This is not just a discussion happening in the US.
Just last year Conservative MP Caroline Ansell argued the current abortion limit should be lowered from 24 weeks to 22 weeks.
It was only in November that Reform's Nigel Farage agreed that the abortion limit should be rolled back.
This is a terrifying thought when you realise that Brits are now more likely to consider Reform UK as the main opposition party, ahead of the Conservatives, according to research from this week.
Thankfully, 76% of Brits also feel there is no better time to speak up for women's rights than right now.
We should all care about the deplorable treatment of Adriana, firstly because she's a woman who is being treated like a human incubator; secondly, if it's happened to one woman, it could happen to any of us; and thirdly, her story signals what feels like the point of no return for women's rights.
In the UK, an abortion can legally be performed up to 23 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy, in line with the Abortion Act 1967.
After 24 weeks, abortion is only permissible in limited circumstances.
To find out more, and to support the Women Need 24 Weeks campaign, head to abortionrights.org.uk/protect-abortion-time-limite/.
To sit idly by and say nothing or do nothing, is to allow the patriarchy and misogyny to win out. It cannot get to the point where we're forced to wear red dresses and white bonnets, told not to speak, and have no say over what happens to our bodies.
Take action to protect all women by supporting the Women Need 24 Weeks campaign, call your MP and make your concerns known. Speak out on social media and talk to your male friends and family members to help them see why this matters.
I would especially like to see protests in the States for Adrianna. Too often, stories of Black women being mistreated by the state fade into distant memory because of misogynoir. Adriana cannot and should not be forgotten. More Trending
To everyone who has read Adriana's story, I say: Don't wait until it directly affects you, because then, it's too late.
As The Handmaid's Tale protagonist June says: 'Now I'm awake to the world. I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen… In a gradually heating bathtub, you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.'
I'm not planning on seeing how hot it gets before I can't take it anymore, it's time to get up, get out, and make your voice heard.
May Adriana rest in blissful peace once this ordeal is over.
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