A midwife in Texas could face up to 20 years in prison for providing reproductive health care in the state, which has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans. The arrest of Maria Margarita Rojas marks the first criminal case against an alleged abortion provider in Texas since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 — and a major escalation in the far right’s war against bodily autonomy.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday that Rojas, 48, had been arrested on charges of providing illegal abortions and practicing medicine without a license. One of her employees, Jose Ley, was also arrested for providing an abortion and practicing without a license. Providing an abortion in Texas is punishable by up to life in prison and up to $100,000 in civil fines.
Normally I’d agree
Given that in other states, nps are qualified to provide abortions (and they can apparently own medical clinics in this one), this seems more like an issue caused by the laws in Texas than helped by them.
If midwives are “licensed” to do that procedure, then they shouldn’t be using that as an excuse for their arrest. Would just depend how the laws are written, really.
Bottom line though, if you’re not legally cleared to do the procedure, then you should be arrested if you do the procedure.
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The procedure is banned, nobody’s licensed to do it anymore. If you’ve trained as an obstetrician and midwife and can do a lifesaving procedure which has now been banned because politicians got worried that not enough people show up to church, I think it’s absolutely your right to get upset for being arrested for it. The other option is for someone who took the Hippocratic oath to sit and watch people needlessly die for politics.
I don’t think she’s surprised, because it’s not surprising, but it’s sure as hell upsetting.
Fair enough, but if she’s not surprised, and knows it’s illegal, I’m not sure what else to say, except for, if you’re going to protest you might get arrested for the protest, especially if that protest is practicing medicine without a license for the procedure.
You want to protest a law do it another way. Transport the people to another state where they can have it done legally, if it’s feasible to do so healthwise. And yes I’m aware there’s probably a law against transporting them, but it’s a lot less risky protest than practicing medicine on someone without a license to do it.
Otherwise campaign to have elected officials that won’t pass laws like that.
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That depends. She’s a trained obstetrician, she probably knows when moving the patient is better than not (and yes, anyone can sue you for $10k for helping someone over state lines for the purpose of getting an abortion). There’s also the possibility that it’s a ten or more hour drive to the nearest clinic, which comes with a significant time and gas money commitment that some people would find it difficult to impossible to make. I agree that performing medicine is not the most effective protest, but it’s totally the most effective way of making sure that your vulnerable patients get medical care.
Campaigning against abortion bans is great, but how many women will die before the next election? I don’t think I’d be willing to comply with the law and watch them as a doctor, and I hope most doctors would agree, because I’d personally far prefer to get treatment than follow the laws in an emergency.
Well I can totally agree with this, life is greater than law. I would assume Good Samaritan laws would protect anyone practicing medicine without a license in that case.
But if someone is constantly doing a procedure where death is not imminent, then that’s something different, and it should only be done by license personnel.
There’s two different scenarios described (risk of immediate death, vs not), and what I’ve seen done usually by people who support protesting by regularly doing the procedure, is that they mix those two scenarios together, in essence creating a legal loophole.
Save lives, definitely do it. Just protesting, you better be licensed.
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