Texas Arrests First Abortion Provider Since Fall of Roe v. Wade

A Texas midwife and their colleague became the first known people to be arrested for performing abortions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, The New York Times reported Monday night. In a statement, Attorney General Ken Paxton said Maria Margarita Rojas—known as “Dr. Maria”—was operating several clinics near Houston. She was charged alongside Jose Ley, 29, with “illegal performance of an abortion,” which has been classified as a second degree felony since the state’s draconian ban on the procedures took effect in 2022. It remains unclear what Ley’s relationship to Rojas and her clinics is. “This is, as far as I know, the first allegation that someone in a ban state is providing an abortion in direct violation of abortion laws,” Marc Hearron of the Center for Reproductive Rights told the Times. Both Rojas and Ley were being held on a $500,000 bond in Waller County, a more rural and conservative jurisdiction just west of Houston. “In Texas, life is sacred,” Paxton said in his statement. “I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted.” Lawyers for Rojas and Ley could not immediately be reached by the Times.