Lynn M. Morgan is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College, with a PhD in Medical Anthropology from the joint program at the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco. She is author of Icons of Life: A Cultural History of Human Embryos (University of California Press, 2009) and close to 50 articles. Her current research centers on the tactics used in global antiabortion movements.
While a visiting scholar at the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies through March 2026, she is working on a new project, “The Politicization of Maternal Mortality Data.” Antiabortion activists acknowledge that the most compelling argument for legal abortion is the specter of what happens when it is banned. They are intent on reframing this narrative, claiming that abortion does not lead to maternal deaths and that data suggesting otherwise are flawed. In the U.S., the struggle to shift the maternal mortality narrative took on greater significance after the Supreme Court revoked the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Abortion rights advocates warned that the resulting restrictions would lead to more pregnancy-related deaths; in response, antiabortion activists redoubled efforts to manufacture uncertainty about the credibility of maternal mortality data. In this context, it is crucial to understand the genesis and evolution of the antiabortion activists’ argument about the links between abortion access and maternal mortality data. Morgan focuses on mid-20th century America, when the argument gained traction as maternal mortality rates plummeted while abortion remained illegal. Doctors presented competing statistical evidence to support their positions, comparing the numbers of maternal deaths and therapeutic abortions in Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals. This research provides insight into the history and logic of contemporary efforts to politicize maternal mortality data.
