Attorneys for Waller midwife Maria Rojas appeared in a Houston appeals court on Thursday, asking to reopen three clinics that were shut down after Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Rojas of performing illegal abortions.
Marc Hearron of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights argued that the state still hasn’t produced any substantive evidence against the midwife but shut down her livelihood and is requiring her to wear an ankle monitor for the foreseeable future. She is also unable to help clients who are primarily low-income Spanish speakers, many of whom don’t have insurance.
“This baseless lawsuit really has destroyed Maria’s life,” Hearron said. Rojas did not appear at Thursday’s 40-minute hearing, which was livestreamed on YouTube.
Rojas, 48, was arrested in March 2025 in the first criminal case stemming from Texas’ 2022 near-total abortion ban. At the time, reproductive justice advocates blasted Paxton for targeting a woman of color who legally immigrated from Peru and was providing healthcare to an underserved population.
Hearron said after Thursday’s hearing that he wasn’t sure when the three-judge panel would rule on the civil case. The appeal, unrelated to Rojas’ criminal charges, is asking that her clinics in Waller, Cypress and Spring be reopened.
Felony charges against Rojas, which carry a penalty of up to 99 years in prison and a $100,000 fine, are baseless, Hearron said. Rojas has decades of experience as a healthcare provider and licensed midwife. One of her Houston-area clinics had a birthing center where she delivered babies.
“Her life has been upended because of the state’s unproven allegations,” Hearron said. “She was held in jail for 10 days until an exorbitant $1.4 million bond was posted and is still being forced to wear an ankle monitor. Rojas lost her livelihood and was stripped of her midwifery license.”
As attorney general, Paxton doesn’t have independent prosecutorial authority and must be invited by a district attorney to bring criminal charges. Waller County DA Sean Whittmore, a former employee of the law enforcement division of the Attorney General’s Office, joined forces with the AG to prosecute the case. The Center for Reproductive Rights has suggested that Paxton, who is currently running against John Cornyn and Wesley Hunt in the Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat, is crusading against healthcare providers to curry favor with anti-abortion advocates.
“Attorney General Paxton has been escalating attacks on health care providers across the country in an effort to end abortion access,” Center for Reproductive Rights senior media adviser Tharanga Yakupitiyage said in a statement. “The criminalization of healthcare providers has tragic real-world consequences, as seen in the death of Tierra Walker, who died of preeclampsia after being denied an abortion during her high-risk pregnancy.”
Paxton has said he aims to protect the unborn and all Texans from “dangerous clinics” practicing medicine without a license. “Rojas and her network of illegal clinics operated with blatant disregard for the law, putting people’s lives at risk,” he said in a 2025 statement.
Hearron told the court on Thursday that the attorney general’s office ran an “incredibly shoddy investigation,” failed to provide any evidence that abortions took place at Rojas’ clinics and used inadmissible hearsay witness statements that weren’t properly certified by a court.
“The investigation was headed by a Medicaid fraud investigator who had no medical training, no experience with midwifery and no experience investigating abortions or practicing medicine,” Hearron said. “He truly jumped to some incredibly wild conclusions. He saw someone exiting the clinic and getting helped into a car and just assumed that person may have had an abortion. When clinic staff gave him explanations that were consistent with lawful care, he didn’t investigate that at all. He just assumed they must be lying. I could go on and on.”
Jeffrey Stephens, a lawyer for the Texas attorney general’s office, argued the merits of the injunction that closed the clinics, but did not address how the investigation was conducted.
The judges at Thursday’s hearing asked technical questions and pushed back on the claim that the context of the temporary injunction — the ruling that closed the three clinics — was unclear. “They weren’t suing Ms. Rojas or her facilities for doing appendectomies or broken legs or skinned knees. They were suing for abortions,” one judge said.
Another asserted that “there’s not a lot there” in the appellant’s claim and suggested the matter should be heard by a trial court.
The Houston-area clinics have been closed for almost a year. Hearron told the Houston Press on Thursday that he’s hopeful the court will rule soon in Rojas’ favor.
“The state of Texas has no case, and today’s hearing made that clear,” Hearron said. “Attorney General Ken Paxton ensnared Rojas because he is so desperate to prosecute someone — anyone —under the Texas abortion ban. This is nothing but a publicity stunt. Paxton should be ashamed that he shut down these clinics while his state is facing a vast maternal health care crisis. Houston families deserve better.”