HOUSTON (AP) – A Texas appeals court on Thursday dismissed an injunction that forced a Houston-area midwife to close her clinics, ruling that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton \u2019s office relied solely on an anonymous email as evidence that she violated the state\u2019s 2022 abortion ban.<\/p>\n
Paxton\u2019s office secured the injunction 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
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
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
Abortion is completely banned in Texas with very limited exceptions.<\/p>\n
The appeals court, overseen by three Republican judges appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, 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
A spokesperson for Paxton\u2019s office said the attorney general will appeal the court\u2019s decision to the Texas Supreme Court to \u201censure clarity in temporary injunction procedure in this and other cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
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
\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
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
This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune <\/a>and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HOUSTON (AP) – A Texas appeals court on Thursday dismissed an injunction that forced a Houston-area midwife to close her clinics, ruling that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton \u2019s office relied solely on an anonymous email as evidence that she violated the state\u2019s 2022 abortion ban. Paxton\u2019s office secured the injunction last year against clinics … Continue reading Appeals court overturns order closing Texas midwife clinics accused of illegal abortions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-26 15:11:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1527808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527809,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527808\/revisions\/1527809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1527808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1527808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1527808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}