Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media
Marc Hearron, an attorney representing Houston-area midwife Maria Rojas, speaks to reporters after a court hearing Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.
An attorney representing a Houston-based midwife accused by the state of providing illegal abortions asked an appeals court on Thursday to reverse a temporary restraining order that shuttered her clinics.
Rojas last year was indicted on 15 felony charges stemming from allegations that she performed illegal abortions at three clinics — in the Houston-area communities of Cypress, Spring and Waller — and operated the facilities without licenses. She became the first person to be arrested under Texas’ near-total abortion ban and a quick target of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to enforce the new law.
The Fifteenth Court of Appeals heard arguments Thursday in the attorney general’s civil case against Rojas. Though court justices raised questions about the state’s evidence used to secure a temporary injunction issued by a lower court, the lengthy court hearing revolved around legal technicalities and whether the state needs a constitutional basis to bring forth lawsuits.
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No decisions were immediately made Thursday by the court’s three-justice panel. The outcome of the civil case will also have no bearing on the criminal case against Rojas, which is ongoing.
The allegations followed the attorney general’s monthslong investigation, which was prompted by a complaint from a person who claimed that two women had received abortions from the business. One woman was allegedly three months pregnant and another was eight weeks pregnant, according to court documents. Investigators who conducted a search warrant on the clinic properties seized misoprostol — a drug commonly used to induce abortions but that also has other medical uses.
Waller County District Judge Gary Chaney signed an order last year to temporarily close the clinics while the civil case moved forward, saying the injunction would be in the interest of the public and enforces state law to preserve unborn life.
Marc Hearron, an attorney representing Rojas in the case, said Chaney’s order was short on details, and argued it was devoid of any evidence to support its claim that the state would likely succeed in its efforts to keep the clinics shuttered.
“The attorney general’s office is in such a rush to find and prosecute someone for violating the abortion ban that it conducted a sloppy investigation and jumped to truly wild conclusions,” he told reporters after the court hearing on Thursday.
The justices raised questions about Chaney’s order to close Rojas’ clinics — and seemed to agree with Hearron’s argument that the order was short on details.
“How is it adequate if there’s no explanation for why there’s a probable right for relief?” Justice Scott Field asked Jeffrey Stephens, a lawyer representing the state.
In response, Stephens argued the findings were clear — that Rojas and her clinics were performing abortions and operating without licenses.
“That’s the reasoning, it’s very simple reasoning,” Stephens said. “I don’t really think there’s much more that the court would need in terms of additional findings to support that. If Ms. Rojas wanted those, she certainly could have requested those under the rules of appellate procedure.”
Even if an appeals court moves to reverse the state’s temporary injunction against Rojas, she likely won’t be able to reopen the clinics because of her bond conditions, which prevent her from being near the facilities. Her midwifery license was suspended after her arrest last year, Hearron said.
Eight people affiliated with the Houston-area health clinics were indicted in October last year. The group — facing criminal charges related to the allegations of performing illegal abortions and operating without licenses — was accused of being a “cabal of abortion-loving radicals” in a news release by Paxton’s office last year.