Texas Woman’s Arrest for Using Abortion Pills an Ominous Sign

This odd ‘mistake’ could become law in many states

Don’t be fooled by the news that a Texas prosecutor dropped murder charges filed against a woman for legally using abortion pills. It is not an indication of sanity in the increasingly virulent anti-abortion movement.

The arrest could be rooted in gross incompetence. Yet it offers a chilling warning of the type of arrests that could occur, considering the rapid erosion of reproductive rights.

By June, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to overturn the nearly 50-year constitutional right to abortion when it considers a Mississippi 15-week ban. If so, at least five states would likely ban abortion and at least 21 have already passed severe restrictions in preparation for the ruling, according to the Guttmacher Institute research organization.

It is reasonable to expect that some of these states — once free to impose whatever restrictions and penalties they want — could criminalize a woman’s decisions about her body, her life.

The attitude that permeated this ordeal — that women who choose abortion deserve to be punished — can’t be ignored.

In the Texas arrest, Lizelle Herrera, a 26-year-old mother of two who is separated from her husband, went to a hospital with signs of a miscarriage. She told hospital staff that she had tried to induce an abortion.

Hospital staff reported her to the Starr County Sheriff’s Department. She was arrested and a March 30 indictment charged her with “intentionally and knowingly causing the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”

She spent two nights in jail before being released after posting a $500,000 bond. After national criticism, Starr County District Attorney Gocha Allen Ramirez dropped the charges and apologized, saying it “is not a criminal matter.” Even some anti-abortion groups objected to the arrest. The media attention was likely unwelcome at a time when abolition is within reach.

“It shouldn’t have happened and there are clear ways that it could have been prevented,” Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel of a reproductive-rights agency aiding Herrera, told Vox. “If the health care providers that she reached out to kept her information confidential. If law enforcement who pursued this rightly realized that there was no criminal wrongdoing here.”

The irony is that this new abolition movement is happening when overwhelming majorities of Americans support abortion rights. And the number of abortions are fewer than ever since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

How such legal cluelessness could happen is yet to be fully explained. There is currently no Texas law that makes Herrera criminally liable. The state, however, has recently added tough new abortion laws.

A Sept. 1 six-week ban on abortion does not target the woman, but allows private citizens to sue for at least $10,000 anyone who provides her any help. Many Texas women went to Oklahoma clinics instead. But an April 12 Oklahoma law makes performing an abortion a crime, except to save the life of the woman.

Another Texas law makes it a felony — punishable by a $10,000 fine and up to two years in prison — to provided medical abortion pills after 49 days of pregnancy. More than four of 10 abortions are the result of medication prescribed by doctors, based on U.S. Centers for Disease Control data.

In December, the Food and Drug Administration approved mail delivery of the pills. However, at least six states have banned pills by mail and more are expected to follow or to add restrictions.

The irony is that this new abolition movement is happening when overwhelming majorities of Americans support abortion rights. And the number of abortions are fewer than ever since 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Herrera, whose husband now says he is filing for divorce, deserves to be compensated for both the violation of patient confidentially and the false arrest. But the attitude that permeated this ordeal — that women who choose abortion deserve to be punished — can’t be ignored.

Unless the Supreme Court upholds abortion rights or Congress turns Roe into law, it’s only a matter of time before more women are charged as murderers.