Texas’ First Abortion Arrests Stem From Monthlong Attorney General Investigation
The Texas Tribune, March 17, 2025
Two people have been arrested and charged with performing illegal abortions at a Houston-area health clinic, the first criminal charges brought under the state’s near-total abortion ban. Maria Margarita Rojas, 48, a licensed midwife, and Jose Ley, 29 and her employee, were charged with the illegal performance of an abortion, as well as practicing medicine without a license. The abortion charge is a second-degree felony, which comes with up to 20 years in prison. Rojas, who identified herself as Dr. Maria, operates a network of clinics in Waller, Cypress and Spring, where she “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals,” according to a press release from Attorney General Ken Paxton. Court records show Rojas was first arrested on March 6, charged with practicing medicine without a license and given a $10,000 bond. She was again arrested Monday morning, alongside Ley, and charged with practicing medicine without a license and performing illegal abortions. A third person, Rubildo Labanino Matos, was arrested March 8 and charged with conspiracy to practice medicine without a license, Paxton said Tuesday.
Some States Consider Bills That Would Punish People Seeking Abortions
TIME, March 18, 2025
Abortion rights advocates are closely following what they call a growing and alarming trend: lawmakers in several states have introduced bills that would allow authorities to charge people who obtain abortions with homicide. Such bills have been introduced in at least 10 states for the 2025 legislative session: Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is tracking these proposals. Most of those states have already banned abortion either in nearly all circumstances or after six weeks of pregnancy. (Missouri and North Dakota are the only exceptions; both of them previously had near-total abortion bans that have since been overturned.) The bills refer to an embryo or fetus as an “unborn child” or “preborn child.” They claim that an embryo or fetus can be a homicide victim, opening the door for authorities to charge and prosecute people who seek abortions. Some of the bills also propose removing clauses from state laws that protected pregnant people seeking abortions from prosecution. The bills include limited exceptions, such as in a situation resulting in “the unintentional death of a preborn child” after life-saving procedures to save the life of a mother when accompanied by reasonable steps, if available, to save the life of her preborn child.
The Women Most Affected by Abortion Bans
The New York Times, March 17, 2025
Abortion bans successfully prevented some women from getting abortions in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to a detailed new study of birth data from 2023. The effects were most pronounced among women in certain groups – Black and Hispanic women, women without a college degree, and women living farthest from a clinic. Abortion has continued to rise since the period the data covers, especially through pills shipped into states with bans. But the study identifies the groups of women who are most likely to be affected by bans. For the average woman in states that banned abortion, the distance to a clinic increased to 300 miles from 50 miles, resulting in a 2.8 percent increase in births relative to what would have been expected without a ban. The working paper, released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, is the first to analyze detailed local patterns in births soon after the Dobbs decision in 2022, a period when abortion was declining or about flat nationwide. Unexpectedly, abortions have increased nationwide since then. Researchers say this is evidence of unmet demand for abortions before Dobbs. Since then, telehealth and a surge in financial assistance have made it easier for women to get abortions, in both states with bans and where it remained legal. But the new findings suggest that the assistance didn’t reach everyone. State bans appear to have prevented some women from having abortions they would have sought if they were legal.
Md. Poised to Become First State To Use Insurance Surcharge for Abortions
The Washington Post, March 17, 2025
The Maryland Senate passed a bill Monday to allow the state to use a $25 million pot of money to fund abortion services, paving the way for the state to become the first in the country to use money collected from a surcharge on insurance plans sold under the Affordable Care Act to pay for reproductive health care. Del. Lesley J. Lopez (D-Montgomery), who introduced a House of Delegates version of the legislation that was approved last week after a tense debate, said that the proposed law is in keeping with a major theme of this year’s legislative session: “to protect Marylanders” amid chaos and uncertainty at the federal level. The two bills must now be reconciled by the two chambers before a final version is sent to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk to be signed into law. Lopez said that her bill was an extension of the state’s long history of protecting reproductive health care, most recently with a ballot measure supported by more than 75 percent of voters that enshrined abortion access in the state constitution last year. She said that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has increased demand for abortion care in Maryland, which is one of the southernmost states where access to abortion remains unrestricted.
Republicans Wage State Fights To Walk Back Abortion Rights Votes
Bloomberg Law, March 20, 2025
Republican legislative majorities in states where voters recently approved reproductive rights measures are pushing legislation to reinstate abortion bans and other restrictions that would complicate how courts interpret the newly enshrined protections. In Missouri and Montana, where Republicans control both chambers and the governor’s office, bills are moving through the legislature to put forth new constitutional amendments banning abortion in most cases or recognizing embryos and fetuses as persons under state law. The amendments, if approved by voters, are likely to spur state litigation to determine which right supersedes the other. Republicans in Arizona are also aiming to enact targeted restrictions on abortion, including new requirements for physicians prescribing abortion-inducing drugs. Voters in each of these states approved constitutional amendments in November protecting abortion until fetal viability, or roughly 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reproductive rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers say these moves have forced them to go on defense, prepping their own legislation and readying for potential litigation to block proposals that they say could have far-reaching implications for all areas of reproductive health care, including contraception and fertility treatment.
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Read more about NPWF’s recently filed amicus brief on behalf of 25 reproductive health, civil rights, and social justice organizations in State of Tennessee et al. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, supporting reproductive health privacy protections.
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