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.

The arrest of health care workers is Texas’s latest move to distinguish itself as a pioneer when it comes to the removal of vital reproductive health care — and in the most violent of ways. Both in terms of legislative attacks, and Paxton’s campaign to use every pernicious law on the books to punish those providing and seeking abortion care, Texas continues to set a chilling, reactionary standard.

Rojas, known as “Dr. Maria,” is a nurse practitioner who has been a licensed midwife in the US since 2018; she previously........

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