Woman Arrested for Abortion in Texas, Held on Half-Million-Dollar Bond: 'This Arrest Is Inhumane'

[niyad]

Woman Arrested for Abortion in Texas, Held on Half-Million-Dollar Bond: ‘This Arrest Is Inhumane’
4/9/2022 by Carrie N. Baker

On Thursday, April 7, Texas police arrested a woman and charged her with murder for "******allegedly self-inducing an abortion using pills.****** The woman, 26-year old Lizelle Herrera who lives near the Texas-Mexico border, is being held in Starr County jail on a $500,000 bond.“This arrest is inhumane. We are demanding the immediate release of Lizelle Herrera,” said Rockie Gonzalez, founder and board chair of Frontera Fund, a Rio Grande Valley-based abortion assistance fund. “What is alleged is that she was in the hospital and had a miscarriage and divulged some information to hospital staff, who then reported her to the police.”La Frontera Fund held a protest outside the Starr County Jail on Saturday morning, April 9, demanding the immediate release of Herrera.
“This is a developing story and we don’t yet know all the details surrounding this tragic event,” Gonzalez said. “What we do know is that criminalizing pregnant people’s choices or pregnancy outcomes, which the state of Texas has done, takes away people’s autonomy over their own bodies, and leaves them with no safe options when they choose not to become a parent.”

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The murder charge is an extreme and unprecedented misuse of Texas law that is in direct conflict with the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Texas does not have a law that makes self-inducing an abortion a crime (three states do—Oklahoma, South Carolina and Nevada). Two recent laws restricting abortion in the state—Senate Bill 8 and Senate Bill 4—explicitly exempt pregnant women. Senate Bill 8, enacted on September 1, 2021, purports to ban abortion at roughly six weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest. The law, however, is only enforceable by private parties bringing civil suits against people who “aid and abet” women to get an abortion and the law explicitly exempts pregnant women from prosecution. Federal and state courts have dismissed lawsuits attempting to block the law on grounds that it is not enforceable by the state. Texas also enacted Senate Bill 4 on December 1, 2021, making it a crime for doctors to prescribe abortion pills to patients who are more than seven weeks pregnant or who mail abortion pills to a patient at any time of pregnancy. Violating the law is a felony punishable by up to two years in jail and a fine of $10,000. But the law applies only to doctors and explicitly exempts pregnant women from criminal penalties.

Despite these explicit exemptions, the Starr County Sheriff’s Office arrested and jailed Herrera “on the charge of murder after [she] did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of an******* individual****** by self-induced abortion.” The prosecution of Herrera is not the first time extreme, politically-motivated prosecutors have stretched the law in order to punish women who end their own pregnancies. The organization If/When/How, which fights to halt the criminalization of people who self-manage their abortions, has uncovered 18 arrests of people who end their own pregnancies and those who have supported them.
Prosecutors in these cases often use antiquated laws or laws meant to protect, not arrest, pregnant people, such as feticide laws that explicitly exempt pregnant women or other generally applicable laws such as child neglect, practicing medicine on oneself, or possession of a dangerous substance. People targeted are disproportionately low-income women, immigrants, Latinas and Black women.

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https://msmagazine.com/2022/04/09/woman-arrested-abortion-texas-mexico-murder-lizelle-herrera/

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Protesters at Starr County Jail after Lizelle Herrera's arrest

It is great seeing boots on the ground in Starr County. A protest was organized very quickly and this protest needs to grow

Link to tweet

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https://delapabb.medium.com/my-interview-with-la-frontera-funds-rockie-gonzalez-on-lizelle-herrera-s-arrest-in-starr-county-b7a747068d14

Rockie Gonzalez is the founder and board chairwoman for Frontera Fund which provides financial assistance to low-income women seeking an abortion in the Rio Grande Valley.
She is on a call with me tonight as this story develops.
Rockie, what was Frontera Fund’s initial reaction to hearing about this case.

Well, our first response was to get on the phone together and begin to strategize. This is, as far as we know, one of the first sort of post-SB8 arrests. And we know that it’s a developing story so we don’t have a lot of the details. They’re kind of coming in as we’re monitoring the situation. But currently, we’re assembling all of our legal teams and our allies and other advocates across the states and nationally for support. And so we’re looking at, you know, trying to get in touch with the family and make sure that she has, you know, supportive legal representation, and we are hosting an action outside the Starr County Jail tomorrow to demand her immediate release.....

Frontera Fund has quickly put together a political action in response to this. You’ll be at the Starr County Jail tomorrow morning protesting Herrer’s arrest. What do you hope to communicate to people tomorrow? What message do you want them to take away?

We would like for people to know that it is unjust for medical staff to betray this kind of confidence and that the legislation that Governor Abbott has put forth and tried to push in this state is making it so that innocent people are being harmed. And we want people to know that this type of legislation impacts low income people of color communities the most when state legislators put restrictions on our reproductive rights. It’s not well-to-do people with health insurance that are most impacted. It’s poor people and low in communities, generally from people of color communities who suffer the impacts of these kinds of legislations.

[niyad]

2. Thank you for this excellent information.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. As a Texan, this arrest is pure crap and this lady needs to be released

[niyad]

4. I remember that you are Texan, and I cannot imagine what it is like for you and all the great Texans

I know to witness what is going on in your state.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. We are working hard to turn Texas blue

Greg and the GOP are nervous. The adoption of the Texas voter suppression measures (25,000+ vote by mail ballots rejected), Greg's efforts to steal money from other programs to build a wall that serves no purpose, The spending of over $2 billion to station Texas national guardsmen at the border where they serve no purpose, the attempt to outlaw gender reaffirming treatment for trans kids, the plant to adopt a Texas "don't say gay" law, the Texas antibortion law and Greg's latest stunt of promising to bus detainees to Washington when he does not have the power (see Jen Psaki's comments on this stunt).

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Greg and the Texas GOP are worried. Beto can take Greg down and these stunts are all measures to scare. This is yet another stunt that shows how scared the Greg and the GOP are

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Texas woman faces murder charge after 'self-induced abortion'

The Chroncile have some additional facts. I do not understand how this lady broke the law

Link to tweet

A 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder in Texas after authorities said she caused “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” in a state that has the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S.....

Delgado did not say under what law Herrera has been charged. He said no other information will be released until at least Monday because the case remains under investigation.

Texas law exempts her from a criminal homicide charge for aborting her own pregnancy, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck told The Associated Press.

“(Homicide) doesn’t apply to the murder of an unborn child if the conduct charged is ‘conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child,’” Vladeck said......

A 2021 state law that bans abortions in Texas for women who are as early as six weeks pregnant has sharply curtailed the number of abortions in the state. The law leaves enforcement to private citizens who can sue doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.

The woman receiving the abortion is exempted from the law.

There is no Texas statute that allows for this lady to be charged This case will be dismissed before it gets to trial or this case will not survive a motion to dismiss