Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that a Houston-area midwife has been arrested for performing illegal abortions, marking the first criminal charges brought under the state’s near-total abortion ban.
Maria Rojas, 48, was charged with performing abortions and practicing medicine without a license. She owned and operated multiple clinics in the Northwest Houston area and employed individuals who deceptively presented themselves as licensed medical professionals, Paxton’s office concluded following an investigation.
The abortion charge is a second-degree felony, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years and a maximum $10,000 fine. Additionally, the abortionist could face civil penalties worth at least $100,000 per violation for illegally performing an abortion under the Texas Human Life Protection Act.
The abortion ban, which went into effect in 2021, banned abortions after a fetal heartbeat was detected, typically around six weeks of pregnancy. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade a year later, the law prohibited abortion from the moment of conception. It does not provide exceptions for rape or incest.
The charge pertaining to the lack of medical licensing is a third-degree felony, with punishments of two to ten years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine.
Rojas was arrested earlier this month for practicing medicine without a license before being released on a $10,000 bond the following day. She was arrested again on Monday.
Jose Ley, 29, whom Rojas employed, was also arrested and charged on Monday for not having a medical license in Texas, according to Paxton’s office. He helped Rojas provide at least one abortion. A Cuban national, Ley entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was later paroled for entry by the Biden administration.
Moreover, Rubildo Matos, 54, was arrested and charged with conspiracy to practice medicine without a license as a nurse practitioner. His license is on probation by the Texas Board of Nursing. Authorities detained him on March 8 after he returned to the U.S. from Cuba.
The Republican attorney general’s Healthcare Program Enforcement Division filed a temporary restraining order to shutter the midwife’s network of clinics to prevent further illegal activity from being committed.
The Waller County district attorney referred the case to Paxton’s office, suggesting the attorney general will handle the prosecution. The investigation remains ongoing.
“In Texas, life is sacred. 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,” Paxton said in a statement. “Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable.”
The attorney general’s office emphasized that the near-total abortion targets healthcare providers actively terminating pregnancies, not patients seeking such procedures.
In another case, Paxton sued a New York doctor for prescribing and mailing abortion pills to a patient in Dallas. That same physician, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury in late January. Two weeks later, a Texas judge imposed on Carpenter a $100,000 civil penalty and a permanent injunction that barred her from prescribing abortion medication to Texas residents through telemedicine without having a medical license in the Lone Star State.
Texas and Louisiana challenged New York’s interstate shield law, which protects abortion providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions if they prescribe medication to states where abortion is banned.