{"id":384546,"date":"2026-07-24T01:02:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T01:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/384546\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T01:02:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T01:02:24","slug":"ruling-overturns-closure-of-texas-midwifes-clinics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/384546\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruling overturns closure of Texas midwife\u2019s clinics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/about\/ethics\/#ai-policy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI policy<\/a>, and give us <a href=\"https:\/\/airtable.com\/appFeleeKVUN0Iytx\/pagPG40gbkU0EfjIr\/form\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A Texas appeals court on Thursday dismissed an injunction that forced a Houston-area midwife to close her clinics, ruling that Texas <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/ken-paxton\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/ken-paxton\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>\u2019s office relied solely on an anonymous email as evidence that she violated the state\u2019s 2022 abortion ban.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paxton\u2019s office <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texasattorneygeneral.gov\/news\/releases\/attorney-general-ken-paxton-secures-injunction-ensuring-illegal-network-houston-area-abortion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">secured the injunction<\/a> last year against clinics operated by Maria Margarita Rosas. She still faces criminal charge that she provided unlawful abortions and employed unlicensed individuals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Texas 15th Court of Appeals, created three years ago by the Texas Legislature to handle major business and state civil cases, found that the trial court erred in granting the injunction because the judge relied only on affidavits from Paxton\u2019s office that didn\u2019t provide direct evidence that the violations occurred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Justice Scott Field\u2019s opinion said the evidence submitted to support the injunction \u201cdoes not reasonably support\u201d the claim that abortions were performed at the clinics and the lower court \u201cabused its discretion in granting the temporary injunctive relief.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Abortion is completely banned in Texas with <a href=\"https:\/\/guides.sll.texas.gov\/abortion-laws\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">very limited exceptions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The appeals court, overseen by three Republican judges appointed by <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/greg-abbott\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/greg-abbott\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a>, did not give an opinion on whether the accusations against Rosas are valid. Instead, it focused on the injunction that forced the clinics\u2019 closure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paxton\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a statement, the Center for Reproductive Rights called the appeals court ruling a \u201csignificant step\u201d toward justice for Rojas, adding that the state has unfairly targeted her.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe state of Texas has no case,\u201d said Jenna Hudson, the group\u2019s senior counsel. \u201cMaria Rojas has been an upstanding midwife who delivered babies and provided lawful care for underserved pregnant patients.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rojas owned and operated Clinica Waller Latinoamericana in Waller, Clinica Latinoamericana Telge in Cypress, and Latinoamericana Medical Clinic in Spring, according to the attorney general\u2019s office. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Disclosure: The Center for Reproductive Rights has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/support-us\/corporate-sponsors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4970,405,56,58,57,746,4479,10013,6748],"class_list":["post-384546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-abortion","tag-harris-county","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-spring","tag-texas-attorney-general","tag-waller-county","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}