Eight people face felony charges in Texas for helping women – a crime, apparently, in the post-truth era of “pro-life” laws.
In the state that claims to “protect life,” helping someone survive can still get you arrested.
Eight people have been swept up in a Texas witch hunt led by Attorney General Ken Paxton, accused of practicing medicine without a license – or, as some would put it, doing their jobs.
At the heart of this political morality play is Maria Margarita Rojas, a 49-year-old Houston-area midwife now painted as a criminal mastermind. Prosecutors claim she performed illegal abortions and operated medical clinics without state approval, making her the first target under the Texas Human Life Protection Act – a law that shields unborn lives by cornering the living.
Her attorney, Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube, says the case is pure theater. “We haven’t seen a shred of evidence,” she told CNN, calling out Paxton for making inflammatory public statements designed to sway opinion, not justice.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Rojas in a civil case, went further – labeling the prosecution a sham built on fear and politics. Rojas, they insist, provided affordable care to low-income and uninsured immigrant women who had nowhere else to go.
“It’s not a coincidence,” said senior counsel Jenna Hudson. “Paxton’s office is targeting immigrant healthcare workers to feed the anti-immigrant hysteria sweeping the country. Texas doesn’t need more villains – it needs compassion.”
Rojas was briefly jailed in March and now faces 15 felony counts, including illegal abortion and 12 counts of unlicensed practice. Her clinics have been shut down while the state decides whether helping women counts as a felony or an act of mercy.
Texas law allows abortions only when the pregnant person’s life is at risk – a phrase so vague that even doctors fear to interpret it. Violators face up to $100,000 in fines, loss of license, and prison time.
For medical providers, uncertainty has become the real punishment. And for women, the consequences are far more dangerous than prison walls.
In a place where even self-induced abortions once led to murder charges, justice in Texas seems less like law and more like theater – the kind where truth always loses in the final act.
