A little over a decade ago, an acquaintance of mine was joyfully expecting a baby. Then came dangerously high blood pressure, and she was hospitalized with pre-eclampsia 27 weeks into the pregnancy. Her blood pressure would not stabilize, so her doctor decided on an emergency caesarean to save her life—and her baby’s. The baby spent months in the NICU, but in the end, that decision indeed saved both lives. But had this woman had a different doctor, the story could have ended differently—with the death of the mother, the baby, or both.
Some prophecies are self-fulfilling. When the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson on June 24, 2022, power for regulating abortion was returned to the states, inaugurating abortion bans in some states. Prophets of doom warned that women would die. The prophets were right. Multiple women have died. According to such outlets as ProPublica, these women’s stories show “How Abortion Bans Lead to Preventable Deaths.” But is this true? What if abortion bans have not killed anyone after all? What if the real killer is still at large and poised to strike again?
Let us take a step back and consider two women whose deaths ProPublica has expressly blamed on abortion bans: Amber Thurman in Georgia and Nivaeh Crain in Texas. The writers who have covered these stories and assigned the blame are not medical doctors, and neither am I. The information available to us about these women and their deaths may be incomplete. I am, however, a historian who believes that the stories we tell have power—sometimes even the power of life and death.