Lawyers for a midwife charged with illegally operating Houston-area abortion clinics are arguing in a new legal filing that the medical centers providing healthcare services primarily to low-income and Spanish-speaking clients should remain open.
Attorneys with the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights filed an appeal Monday, doubling down on claims that allegations against Waller midwife Maria Rojas are false and that the Texas Attorney General’s Office “conducted a shoddy investigation and leapt to wild conclusions.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton “boasts that he has caught a Houston-area abortionist and has shut down clinics providing illegal abortions,” the appeal states. “But there’s a snag; it isn’t true.”
Rojas, 48, was arrested in March 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.
“[The attorney general’s office] ensnared Defendant Maria Rojas, a dedicated, licensed midwife who ran a lawful birthing center and delivered babies,” according to court documents filed by Rojas’ attorneys. “And it shut down the Defendant Clinics, where uninsured, primarily Spanish-speaking Texans could receive lawful, affordable care via telemedicine from licensed healthcare professionals, including advanced practice nurse practitioners.”
The charges against Rojas come with a potential life in prison sentence and up to $100,000 in fines. She’s currently out on bond with an ankle monitor.
Paxton does not have independent prosecutorial authority and must be invited in 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. Paxton recently filed to run against John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate primary election, prompting speculation from Rojas’ attorneys that he’s crusading to gain favor with anti-abortion advocates.
Paxton filed a civil suit March 17, accusing Rojas of providing or attempting unlawful abortions and practicing medicine without a license. At a hearing March 27, a Waller County judge ruled that three clinics in Waller, Cypress and Spring be shut down and that Rojas is barred from “practicing medicine or performing abortions in violation of state law.”
Attorneys are appealing the temporary injunction, asking that the clinics remain open. The matter will be decided by the Fifteenth Court of Appeals.
The order should be reversed because prosecutors did not find that irreparable harm was probable and imminent; it was not specific nor did it describe in reasonable detail the “restrained acts;” and it did not set a trial date, argued Marc Hearron, lead attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights.
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 statement.
Rojas is a licensed healthcare provider who was helping meet a need in an underserved population, Hearron said last month.
“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.”
Medical providers are now terrified that they could be prosecuted for providing healthcare, he added.
“This case shows that absolutely people need to be scared,” Hearron 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.”
Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
