A Houston-area midwife accused of performing illegal abortions had her first court hearing last month and her civil attorney said the accusations from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are a stunt to gain political support from anti-abortion activists.
Maria Rojas, 48, was arrested in March in the first criminal case stemming from Texas’ 2022 near-total abortion ban. At the time of the arrest, reproductive justice advocates lambasted Paxton for targeting a woman of color who legally came to the United States from Peru and was providing healthcare to an underserved population of low-income women, many of whom don’t speak English.
Paxton does not have independent prosecutorial authority and must be invited in by a district attorney to bring criminal charges. Prosecutors in Texas’ larger counties have said they’re not going to touch criminal abortion charges. But Waller County DA Sean Whittmore, a former employee of the law enforcement division of the Attorney General’s Office, was willing to join forces with Paxton, who announced Tuesday he’ll be challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in an upcoming primary election.
During a March 27 hearing, Waller County District Judge Gary Chaney granted an injunction declaring that a network of three Houston-area clinics must remain temporarily closed. Marc Hearron, senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights and a civil attorney for Rojas, stopped short of calling the court proceedings a dog and pony show but clearly thinks the case is flawed.
The civil complaint sought to keep the clinics closed, so Hearron was in court to challenge that. The attorney was surprised, however, to see Rojas in the Waller courtroom. She invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when questioned and Hearron declined to comment on his legal advice but said he was able to speak with Rojas privately.
“We had not asked for Rojas to be present at the hearing,” he said. “We were not planning to call her to testify. The state had not subpoenaed her to be present.”
It appears that Waller County authorities transported Rojas to the courtroom on March 27 because she was already in custody. At the time of the hearing, Rojas had been in jail for 10 days pending the posting of a massive $1 million bond “even though the state had not filed criminal charges against her and still has not filed criminal charges against her,” Hearron said.
Rojas posted bond the day before the hearing butt wasn’t immediately released because the courts did not arrange for her ankle monitor, Hearron said. She was released after the March 27 hearing with the tracking device.
Maria Rojas is a strong and resilient person and a licensed healthcare provider, Hearron said.
“She really cares for the people that she provides healthcare to,” he said. “She was a doctor in Peru, but in the United States, she was a licensed midwife before the state of Texas temporarily revoked her license as a result of this nonsense. She has these clinics, and the clinics primarily serve uninsured Spanish-speaking populations. Nothing in the state’s evidence showed any unlawful activity going on at these clinics.”
What happens next is up to the judge, Hearron said, but the more pressing matter is what happens to the families who were seeking healthcare at Rojas’ clinics. Clínica Waller Latinoamericana and its affiliates in Cypress and Spring are shuttered for the foreseeable future. Patients who, for example, had blood drawn and were waiting on results may have to find care elsewhere, Hearron said.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first person that Ken Paxton goes after and accuses of violating the abortion ban in the state of Texas is someone who is providing midwifery — not traditional OBGYN care — to primarily Spanish-speaking uninsured … Look, they tried to make a big deal out of the fact that they found cash and that they took cash for payments. Yeah, these were uninsured people who were going in and getting care. That’s how those populations pay for medical services,” Hearron said.
Court documents allege that Rojas was pretending to be a doctor and using untrained employees to perform abortions for cash, but it’s unclear how the criminal case will proceed or if it will proceed. Rojas was held on an arrest warrant rather than a criminal complaint, which lawyers say is unusual. She has not been indicted by a grand jury and the state has not turned over its discovery related to the criminal charges.
“If she hasn’t been charged yet, why does she have an ankle monitor?” Hearron said. “I don’t know exactly how these preposterous allegations in this case came up but it does appear that Paxton and his office saw the word abortion and salivated at the possibility of going after someone. This seems to be a political stunt without any real evidence. This is all based on hearsay upon hearsay and conjecture and these wild, irresponsible conclusions that they have jumped to without the type of thorough investigation that you would see if you were really interested in stopping supposedly unlawful abortions … My conclusion from all of that is that this is a political stunt designed to raise Ken Paxton’s political bona fides among the anti-abortion electorate. It’s also designed to scare people who are providing necessary healthcare to low-income populations.”
Medical providers are terrified of getting crossways with Paxton and being sentenced to up to 99 years in prison, Hearron added.
“This case shows that absolutely people need to be scared,” he said. “Of course, Ken Paxton is going to go after anybody that he thinks might be associated with abortion at all. The fact of the matter is it’s dangerous to be pregnant in Texas.”
