Abortion providers are now being arrested in Texas.
Maria Margarita Rojas, a 48-year-old Houston-area midwife, was arrested in the Lone Star State Monday on allegations that she had provided illegal abortions.
Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the charges against Rojas Monday afternoon. It’s the first instance in which an abortion provider has faced criminal consequences in the wake of Texas’s 2022 abortion ban.
“In Texas, life is sacred. I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted,” Paxton said in a statement.
“Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable,” he added.
Paxton’s office charged Rojas, known locally as “Dr. Maria,” with operating a network of clinics between Waller, Cypress, and Spring in the northwest Houston area. The clinics allegedly “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals,” according to a press release.
The consequences for Rojas could be extreme: Under Texas law, she could face life in prison and have her state medical license revoked.
Texas permits abortions only in the most rare and dire circumstances in order to save the life of a pregnant patient, and even then, they’re not guaranteed. Last year, Kate Cox was forced to flee Texas for emergency care even after a court ruled that the 31-year-old mother of two should have access to an abortion under the ban’s medical emergencies clause. But Paxton intervened in the court ruling, threatening that any Texas abortion provider believed to help Cox would face felony charges.
Even out-of-state abortion providers have been threatened by the wide-reaching Texas law. In December, Paxton sued a New York doctor for prescribing the abortion pill to an in-state resident, demanding that the provider pay $100,000 for every violation of the state’s ban. The lawsuit was the first attempt to enforce a state abortion ban beyond its borders.
By and large, most Americans support abortion access. In a 2023 Gallup poll, just 12 percent of surveyed Americans said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Meanwhile, 69 percent believe that it should be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy.
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