A midwife and an affiliate have been arrested and charged with illegally performing abortions in higher Houston, in line with courtroom data and the Texas lawyer normal, apparently the primary prison arrests of abortion suppliers because the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Ken Paxton, the lawyer normal in Texas, stated in a statement that the midwife, Maria Margarita Rojas, operated clinics in a number of cities round Houston, together with two in Harris County, the state’s most populous county, and one in Waller County, a extra rural and conservative jurisdiction the place the costs had been introduced.
The assertion stated that she had been “charged with the unlawful efficiency of an abortion,” which has been a second-degree felony because the state’s near-total abortion ban took impact in 2022. She was additionally charged with training medication with out a license.
Court docket data launched late Monday indicated that an individual who labored with Ms. Rojas, Jose Ley, 29, was additionally arrested and charged with the identical offenses. The data confirmed Ms. Rojas and Mr. Ley had been being held on $500,000 bond in Waller County, west of Houston, the place the costs had been introduced.
Legal professionals for Ms. Rojas and Mr. Ley couldn’t instantly be reached. However a good friend stated that Ms. Rojas had been arrested earlier this month whereas driving to one in all her clinics.
“She was on her option to the clinic and bought pulled over by the police at gunpoint and handcuffed,” stated the good friend, a fellow midwife, Holly Shearman, who stated she had spoken with Ms. Rojas by cellphone final week. “She stated they wouldn’t inform her what was taking place. She stated they took her to Austin.”
Ms. Shearman recalled that Ms. Rojas had informed her that others from the clinic, presumably somebody who labored on the entrance desk, had additionally been arrested.
The bans on abortions across the nation have largely relied on the specter of prosecution, with few cases through which prison circumstances have truly been filed. Abortion suppliers in Texas and different states with abortion bans ceased operations after the choice. Ladies looking for abortions have as a substitute traveled to states the place the process stays authorized or have acquired abortion medicine by way of the mail.
“That is, so far as I do know, the primary allegation that somebody in a ban state is offering an abortion in direct violation of abortion legal guidelines,” stated Marc Hearron of the Heart for Reproductive Rights.
In a handful of circumstances, costs have been introduced in opposition to individuals who supplied abortion capsules to family, both with their data or with out.
The state of Louisiana indicted a New York doctor on criminal charges earlier this 12 months for mailing abortion drugs to a Louisiana girl in violation of the state’s ban. New York has resisted requests to extradite the physician below the state’s protect legislation, which protects suppliers from prosecution in states with abortion bans.
Texas introduced a civil case in opposition to the identical physician, Margaret Carpenter, for sending capsules to Texas residents. She didn’t defend herself in that case, and a judge last month ordered her to pay more than $100,000.
However the arrest of the midwife within the Houston space went additional.
“In Texas, life is sacred,” Mr. Paxton stated in a press release. “I’ll all the time do the whole lot in my energy to guard the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life legal guidelines and work to make sure that unlicensed people endangering the lives of girls by performing unlawful abortions are absolutely prosecuted.”
Ms. Shearman stated Ms. Rojas had been held in a single day after which launched after her preliminary arrest. Court docket data in Waller County, the place the costs had been filed, point out she was held in early March on the cost of training with out a license.
The county’s data didn’t present any new costs for performing an abortion as of late Monday, and the district clerk’s workplace stated it had not but acquired any up to date data within the case. A deputy on the Waller County sheriff’s workplace stated Ms. Rojas had been dropped at the jail on Monday.
After her arrest on felony costs of training medication with out a license, she was held on a $10,000 bond. The brand new costs of offering abortions had been added on Monday.
However Ms. Rojas was not charged with the best diploma of the cost, which happens when the abortion ends in termination of the being pregnant. It was not clear why she had been charged that method. A spokesman for Mr. Paxton didn’t reply to requests for remark.
However in courtroom paperwork, Ms. Rojas was accused of getting “tried an abortion on” a girl recognized as E.G. on two separate events in March and that she was “recognized by legislation enforcement to have carried out an abortion” on one other particular person earlier this 12 months.
Mr. Paxton stated his workplace had additionally filed for a brief restraining order to close down Ms. Rojas’s community of clinics “to forestall additional criminal activity.”
The newest case, within the Houston space, originated with an investigation carried out in Mr. Paxton’s workplace, in line with the Waller County district lawyer, Sean Whittmore, who previously labored in Mr. Paxton’s workplace.
The lawyer normal doesn’t have the facility to implement prison legal guidelines on his personal however can accomplish that on the request of native district attorneys, primarily turning into a accomplice to them in a case. That’s what came about right here, Mr. Whittmore stated.
Based on the web site for one in all her clinics, Ms. Rojas, 49, was born in Peru, has been a licensed midwife in Texas since 2018 and has “attended over 700 births in neighborhood primarily based and hospital settings.”
Court docket data point out that Ms. Rojas is a U.S. citizen however that Mr. Ley, who was additionally arrested, was a citizen of Cuba.
Ms. Shearman stated that Ms. Rojas had been an obstetrician in Peru earlier than shifting america. She had been shocked to listen to the allegation that Ms. Rojas had carried out unlawful abortions.
“They’re saying that she did abortions or one thing?” stated Ms. Shearman, who described herself as conservative. “She by no means ever talked about something like that, and she or he’s very Catholic. I simply don’t imagine the costs.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed analysis.
About The Author
