Who benefits from our silence?

And other links for your Sunday.

Last weekend, I sat in a conference room in Austin, Texas, and listened to Shanette Williams, the mother of Amber Nicole Thurman, talk about watching her daughter die after being denied lifesaving abortion care. “My baby didn’t just die; she was murdered,” Williams said.

What struck me about Williams’ story was that she didn’t realize what was happening at the time. No doctor took her aside and explained that her daughter had taken the abortion pill in order to self-manage her abortion and had a rare complication. She needed a dilation and curettage, or D&C. A D&C is a very common procedure that involves scraping the inside of the uterus with an object called a curette, which looks like a spoon.

There are a lot of reasons women have D&Cs. I had one when I had a miscarriage in 2012 to remove the fetal tissue so I didn’t go septic. They’re performed to remove cancerous tissues, or objects that can cause infections like fibroids, cysts, or polyps. They’re also used in abortions. And abortion bans have made the procedure a felony in many states.

No one told Williams any of this as she sat there, holding her daughter’s hand, comforting her daughter, believing her daughter would live, even as she was dying.

When doctors finally decided to operate, it was too late.

It took reporter Kavitha Surana two years of showing up on Williams’ doorstep and leaving her voicemails and notes until Williams finally learned how her daughter died.

Two years to finally learn the truth.