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A midwife in Texas and her employee have been arrested and charged with performing illegal abortions in what appears to be the first criminal charges against an abortion provider in the state since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
Maria Margarita Rojas, 48, and her employee Jose Ley, 29, are accused of performing abortions illegally, a second-degree felony that carries up to 20 years in prison, and of practicing medicine without a license, a third-degree felony, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said.
Paxton’s office has accused Rojas of operating three clinics in Texas where she performed illegal abortions and employed “unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals to provide medical treatment,” according to a press release.
The clinics did not comment to NBC News on Rojas’ arrest, and she did not respond to inquiries.
Rojas was arrested on March 6 and charged the next day with criminal conspiracy to commit practicing medicine, according to court documents. She was released on a $10,000 bond.
She was arrested again on Monday, along with Ley, on the two felony charges Paxton announced. The state attorney general also said in a release Tuesday that Rubildo Labanino Matos, 54, a nurse practitioner, has been charged with practicing medicine without a license in connection with the case.
The case appears to be the first time that Texas has criminally charged abortion providers since legislation outlawing nearly all abortions went into effect in the state after Roe’s fall in 2022.
Marc Hearron, interim associate director of ligation at the nonprofit Center for Reproductive Rights, told The Washington Post that although details about the case are unclear, “Texas officials have been trying every which way to terrify health care practitioners from providing care and to trap Texans.”
“Their ultimate goal is to end abortion access for all Texans entirely — and they will throw people in jail to get there,” Hearron said.
Paxton previously targeted another abortion provider across state lines, filing civil charges against a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a Texas resident. That doctor, Margaret Daley Carpenter, has also been criminally charged by Louisiana prosecutors who accuse her of prescribing abortion pills via telehealth to a minor patient in their state. In both cases, the doctor appears to have some legal protection from New York authorities, at least for now.