Abortion Doc Tells Biden How Students in Texas Practice Banned Procedures: ‘A Papaya Is A Very Good Representation Of A Uterus’
An abortion doctor told President Joe Biden about a rather unusual workaround that medical students are using to get around strict laws in post-Roe v. Wade Texas.
The president participated in a NowThis News presidential forum moderated by NowThis Senior Correspondent Alejandro Alba on Monday, during which he took questions from a group meant to represent the concerns of young people.
Dr. Danielle Mathisen — a first-year resident who went to med school at UT Southwestern in Dallas — had an extensive exchange with the president on abortion access after the Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
During her first question, Dr. Mathison revealed that because of Texas’ “negative stance” on abortion, “My colleagues and I needed to create an off-campus after-hours club that allowed us to study the curriculum that wasn’t offered to us.”
The president circled back minutes later while talking about the “unintended consequences” of Dobbs, and asked Dr. Mathison for a little more detail — which turned out to include using a papaya as an educational aid:
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: How many universities around the country are like the university? Do you go to West, is it West Texas? You’re going to use it. What was it?
DR. DANIELLE MATHISON: I went to a university in Dallas.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Okay, I won’t mention it then. But how many have that same rule where they don’t teach you OGBYN — about the health and safety relative to pregnancy?
DR. DANIELLE MATHISON: Pretty much across the board, whether it’s a private or public institution, just out of fear that that’s somehow aiding and abetting achieving an abortion.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I didn’t realize that was the case. I’m going to check it out in most states. And because it’s very worrisome, that’s an example of what the Dobbs decision is doing. The Dobbs decision is putting an incredible amount of pressure on doctors to not take and make judgments that really do affect the health of the mother, unrelated to whether or not it’s really related to abortion. For example, the case of a 14 year old girl trying to get access to medicine relating to rheumatoid arthritis. Yes, it’s. And she goes in, for years I’ve been getting it and mom buying it. Go to the counter, drugstores and I can’t sell it to you because they’re worried they’ll be sued. They’re worried they’d be sued. There’s a lot of unintended consequences as well to this Dobbs decision. And so I, I admire the hell out, the heck out of you for being willing to get together with other students and teach yourself. I mean, I’m curious, how do you do that?
DR. DANIELLE MATHISON: A papaya is a very good representation of a uterus, and you can practice on the papaya fruit.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: But who is teaching the practice?
DR. DANIELLE MATHISON: An outside physician, not not a part of our institution, would come in and teach us.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Gotcha. God love ya.
Watch the full exchange above via NowThis News.
