WATCH: 60 Minutes Covers What Texas Women, Doctors Are Living Through Under Ted Cruz's Abortion Ban
AUSTIN, Texas – Last night’s 60 Minutes featured Texas women and OB/GYNs speaking out about the harm done by Ted Cruz’s abortion ban.
When asked what will happen next in Texas if nothing changes, one OB/GYN said:
“We lose physicians in Texas, we lose healthy mothers, we lose families… you could lose your life”
60 Minutes: Doctors say strict abortion laws in Texas put pregnant women and their physicians at serious risk
By Sharyn Alfonsi
Tonight, you will hear from doctors who say, in Texas, the laws designed to stop abortions are creating unintended consequences – hurting women with desired pregnancies and the people who care for them.
In 2021, Dani Mathisen was following in her mother's footsteps. on her way to becoming an OB-GYN. She was 25 years old, in her final year of medical school in Texas, married to her high school sweetheart and ready to start a family.
Mathisen was thrilled when she learned she was pregnant. Early scans and testing showed a healthy baby girl. But a routine fetal anatomy scan at 20 weeks did not go according to plan.
Just two weeks earlier, a new Texas law went into effect, known as SB-8. Senate bill 8.
The law banned abortion at six weeks with no provisions for victims of rape, incest or severe fetal abnormalities… like Dani's case.
Mathisen says her doctors seemed scared and confused.
A year after SB-8 went into effect and Roe was overturned, Texas enacted another, more restrictive law – banning all abortion from conception except when the mother's life was in immediate danger.
Dr. Emily Briggs: The inconsistencies, the misunderstanding, the confusion. This is why women will lose their lives because of these rules.
But Dr. Briggs says the threat of prosecution has created such fear that today, it's not unusual for hospitals to require physicians to consult with staff attorneys when treating complicated pregnancies. Even, miscarriages.
But according to CDC numbers, after Texas restricted abortion maternal deaths rose 61% from 2019, compared to 8% nationwide.
Six Texas counties have imposed "travel bans," which threaten legal action against anyone helping to transport women out of state for abortion services. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit demanding access to the medical records of women leaving the state for that care.
Dr. Dani Mathisen: “I did not wanna be pregnant in Texas. Absolutely not. I think I know too much about what can go wrong in a pregnancy to feel comfortable being pregnant in Texas.”
Dr. Emily Briggs: “It's already scary to decide to become pregnant. Throw on top of that that if something medically complex happened, you could lose your life and not have the care that you deserve. Why would anybody stay for that?”
###