Houston attorney Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube sat flabbergasted at her desk in early October. A press release from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had just touted the arrest of eight people affiliated with a network of Houston-area medical clinics alleged to have practiced abortion care in violation of the state’s extreme ban. Paxton, currently a U.S. Senate candidate as well, labeled the individuals a so-called “cabal of abortion-loving radicals” and denounced their actions as “evil,” amid an ongoing case. The sensational release served as an update to his office’s earlier announcement of the arrest of the clinics’ founder, 49-year-old midwife Maria Margarita Rojas, last March.
“A prosecutor who is truly interested in justice does not blast out a public press release like this to the media while a trial is pending. Nothing has been proven in court yet, and this inflammatory language is just meant to fan the flames of public outcry and poison a jury pool before the facts are heard,” Hochglaube, who serves as Rojas’ criminal defense lawyer, told the Texas Observer. “It’s unethical and irresponsible.”
Rojas is believed to be the first healthcare provider criminally charged for abortion care after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, and she is certainly the first in Texas. The unprecedented prosecution marks a sharp escalation of Paxton’s zealous ongoing attacks on reproductive health providers—and signals his desire to expand his powers to go after those he believes are in violation of abortion law. Paxton’s office is prosecuting the criminal cases, after the Waller County district attorney referred them over, and his office also initiated a separate civil case to shut the clinics down; a status hearing in Rojas’ criminal case is scheduled for early June, while oral arguments in the civil case, which is on appeal, are set for Thursday in Houston.
