On March 17 a Texas midwife was arrested for providing illegal abortions, and perhaps it was only a matter of time. The state enacted a near-total abortion ban in September 2021, nearly a year before Roe v. Wade was officially overturned by the Supreme Court in June of 2022. It’s not the first time Texas, among other states, has pursued abortion-related legal action, but it is the first time the state has actually arrested and criminally charged a provider within the state.
What happened?
Per the Houston Chronicle, Texas midwife Maria Margarita Rojas and her employee Jose Ley were both charged with criminal performance of an abortion and with practicing medicine without a license. Rojas, who was known as “Dr. Maria,” operated a small network of clinics in Harris County, Texas. According to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s press release, she “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals.” She and Ley are accused of performing abortions on two people.
Rojas’s clinics provided health care to low-income and primarily Spanish-speaking communities.
Will the midwife face jail time?
Criminal performance of an abortion is a second-degree felony in Texas, and brings a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Both Rojas and Ley are being held on a $500,000 bail for the abortion charge, and $200,000 for the medical license charge.
Were the patients charged with anything?
The law does not allow for people seeking abortions to be criminally prosecuted.
What’s the precedent? Have there been other abortion-related arrests?
This is the first time (that we know of) the state of Texas has brought criminal charges against an abortion provider since its 2021 ban went into effect. But it is not the first time the state has taken legal action against providers. In December 2024, Paxton sued a New York doctor, Margaret Carpenter, MD, for prescribing the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol to a person in Texas. In February, per Reuters, a Texas judge fined Dr. Carpenter $100,000 after she did not respond to the state’s civil suit. Dr. Carpenter was also criminally indicted by a Louisiana grand jury in January for prescribing abortion pills to a teen in that state.
What does this mean for other states?
A criminal indictment in one state cannot directly impact how laws are applied or enforced in another state. It is possible that this arrest in Texas could embolden other attorneys general to pursue similar charges against abortion providers in their states. The indictment of Rojas could also be the canary in the coal mine signaling an influx of abortion-provider arrests in states with abortion bans, which includes most of the South as well as many parts of the Midwest.
What are abortion rights advocates saying?
“States, and advocates for abortion justice, need to think creatively and stay one step ahead of these anti-abortion efforts,” Lexi White, director of state strategies at All* Above All tells Glamour. “Fighting back against the criminalization of abortion access encapsulates why it is so important to view abortion justice through an intersectional lens. We know that the renewed enforcement of these criminal laws will disproportionately target and harm communities of color and low-income communities across the country. It is a racial and economic justice issue to ensure that people are not dragged into the carceral system for seeking basic health care, and it is our collective responsibility to build safer communities, where everyone can access reproductive health care with dignity and without fear of punishment or state-sanctioned violence.”