Democracy Now! video
In the above video Democracy Now! spoke with Rockie Gonzalez, the founder of La Frontera Fund about Lizelle Herrera who had been recently charged with murder.
Lizelle Herrera, a 26-year-old Latina woman, was arrested in Texas a week ago on Thursday and accused of causing the “death of an individual through a self-induced abortion.”
Herrera was detained on a $500,000 bond and released from jail Saturday evening, hours after activists with the Rio Grande Valley-based La Frontera Fund held a protest outside the Starr County Jail.
The Starr County district attorney has now said he will drop the murder charges against Herrera.
Rockie Gonzalez says Herrera went to a hospital and requested care from medical professionals who then turned her in to law enforcement.
Gonzalez says that while details of the case are sketchy, the highly publicized arrest of Herrera will further intimidate pregnant people from accessing medical care in the age of anti-abortion laws. “People are going to be afraid to share potentially lifesaving information with medical professionals for fear of arrest,” says Gonzalez.
The consequences of Texas’ new abortion law are now being revealed.
Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on TV and radio stations in the US. Its livestream can be found here: https://democracynow.org.