Texas women facing pregnancy complications are forced to travel out of state for care

Dani Mathisen was living in Texas and married to his high school sweetheart. She was very happy when she found out that she was pregnant with a girl. However, a fetal anatomy scan at week 20 revealed devastating news. Her daughter had only one kidney, her spine was so crooked it was pressing on her heart, and her brain was malformed.

The condition was diagnosed as fatal, but under Texas law introduced just weeks before Mathisen’s scans, abortion was banned at six weeks, with no provision for rape, incest or serious fetal abnormalities, as in Dani’s case.

“It wasn’t a question of what we were going to do,” Mathisen said. “It was a question of how do we do this without getting arrested?”

When he couldn’t get treatment in Texas, he went to New Mexico, a non-prohibition state, for care.

Texas doctors looked scared and confused

In 2021, Senate Bill 8, known as SB8, was introduced in Texas. It included a new method of enforcement, deputize citizens prosecuting people who aid or abet an abortion. Successful cases will be rewarded with a $10,000 reward.

The bill included an exception for medical emergencies but did not define what those were.

Mathisen was unable to get help from his own doctors because they feared the consequences of the law.

“It wasn’t clear what aiding and abetting someone to have an abortion was,” he said. “So they couldn’t even give me advice and say, ‘Yes, we recommend that you get an abortion or at least look into it, even if you go to another state.'”

Mathisen and her husband turned to her mother, a doctor, for help. After several calls, her mother made an appointment for Mathisen to terminate her pregnancy at a clinic in New Mexico, a state without a ban.

“He risked his license for this. Because I’m his baby and that’s what I needed,” Mathisen said. “He booked our plane ticket. He booked our hotel. He called the clinic, arranged our schedule, and gave us an envelope full of cash.”

Mathisen was afraid of using a credit card or having his name added to the appointment.

“We paid for the abortion in cash so there would be no paper trail of our Texas credit cards that we used to pay for the abortion,” she said.

Changing legal landscape in Texas

20 states ban or severely restrict abortion after Supreme Court Roe v. Wade overturns his case In June 2022, Texas went one step further and passed a law making it a crime to perform an abortion.

Under the new, more restrictive law, Texas banned all abortions starting after pregnancy except when the mother’s life is in immediate danger.

In 2023, Mathissen joined 19 women with similar stories. case against the Texas government for denial of care. The lawsuit sought not to overturn the bans but to clarify what exceptions were allowed under the law.

The case was: Rejected by Texas Supreme CourtBut after women sued, Texas lawmakers quietly passed a new law that created two exceptions to the ban: one for ectopic pregnancies—when the pregnancy occurs outside the uterus—and another if the woman’s waters break prematurely.

Maternal deaths are increasing

Texas has only released maternal death data through 2021, but according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, maternal deaths rose 61% in Texas from 2019 after Texas restricted abortions; this rate was 8% nationwide.

Dr., who has overseen hundreds of complicated pregnancies in Texas. Emily Briggs said women could lose their lives because of Texas laws. The threat of prosecution has created such fear that today most Texas hospitals require doctors to consult with staff attorneys when treating complicated pregnancies and even miscarriages.

“This is not the medical care that those of us in the medical field signed up for. This was not our plan when we talked to a patient about their care. This should be between me and the patient,” said Dr. Briggs is in question.

Because of these rules, doctors are often unable to provide emergency treatment even in the event of a medical emergency.

Dr. “Time is of the essence in these situations,” Briggs said. “Due to these situations, she may lose her uterus or lose her life. When our hands are tied and we cannot act medically at the appropriate time, the consequences may be worse.”

leaving texas

More than 34,000 Texas women traveled out of state for care last year, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico Hospital, Dr. Eve Espey said they have seen a 300% increase in out-of-state patients between 2019 and 2023.

“On any given day in 2023, 70-71% of our patients were from Texas,” he said.

Women making this journey today face even more risks. Travel bans have been imposed in six Texas counties, threatening legal action against anyone who helps women move out of state for abortion services. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit seeking access to the medical records of women who left the state for this care.

Paxton’s office did not respond to multiple 60 Minutes requests to discuss the matter.

“Most of the patients who come to us and we diagnose miscarriage say, ‘I’m done with Texas. I want my care here. I don’t trust my own doctor to care for me.'” a miscarriage…or pregnancy complication,” said Dr. Espey.

Dani Mathisen was one of them. After losing her baby in Texas, she and her husband moved to Hawaii to begin her Obstetrics and Gynecology residency and start a family.

“I didn’t want to get pregnant in Texas, absolutely not,” she said. “I think I know too much about what can go wrong with pregnancy to be comfortable about getting pregnant in Texas.”

Earlier this year, the Mathisens welcomed a healthy baby girl, Emerson.