In an interview with 60 Minutes, a Texas woman revealed that she had an abortion during her second trimester of pregnancy, when her unborn child was 20 weeks old.
The woman, Dani Mathisen, is a doctor in the state. In 2021, she was 25-years-old and married to her high school sweetheart when she learned that she was expecting. At 20 weeks, a scan showed that the baby had a “lethal” condition.
“Her brain was not formed correctly. She only had one kidney. Her spine was so bent that it put pressure on her heart,” Mathisen said. “My daughter that I planned out to a tee, and we had already started to get little outfits and bath toys, was going to die.”
“It wasn't a question as to what we were going to do. It was a question of how we were going to do it without getting arrested,” she added, referring to the state’s pro-life law that does not allow abortion in cases where the baby has a fetal abnormality.
Mathisen’s mother, who is also a doctor, made an abortion appointment for her daughter in New Mexico.
“We paid for the abortion in cash so that there wasn't a paper trail of our Texas credit cards paying for an abortion,” Mathisen said.
“We paid for the abortion in cash so that there wasn't a paper trail of our Texas credit cards paying for an abortion,” says Dani Mathisen. At 20 weeks pregnant, she learned her baby girl had a lethal condition, and was forced to leave the state to get care. pic.twitter.com/OseMp5pZIt
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 4, 2024
In 2023, Mathisen joined a lawsuit with 19 other women who wanted to obtain abortions in Texas. The Texas Supreme Court rejected their case.