A Texas woman jailed on murder charge over abortion can proceed with her lawsuit, says a federal judge

SEATTLE - A federal judge ruled on July 24 that a Texas woman who was jailed and charged with murder after self-managing an abortion in 2022 can move forward with her lawsuit against the local sheriff and prosecutors. Lizelle Gonzalez was charged with murder in Texas after authorities said she caused "the death of an individual by self-induced abortion."

U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton denied a motion by prosecutors and the sheriff to dismiss Gonzalez's lawsuit during a hearing in the border city of McAllen. Now, more than two years later after spending two nights in jail on the murder charges, she is seeking $1 million in damages on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit argues that Gonzalez suffered harm from the arrest and subsequent media coverage. "The fallout from Defendants' illegal and unconstitutional actions has forever changed the Plaintiff's life," the lawsuit stated.

The state of Texas has one of the nation's most restrictive abortion bans and it outlaws the procedure with limited exceptions. However, under Texas law, women who seek abortion are exempt from criminal charges.

Gonzalez was indicted in 2022 after she took the drug misoprostol while 19 weeks pregnant. She was then treated at a Texas hospital where doctors later performed a caesarian section to deliver a stillborn child after they detected no fetal heartbeat.

The lawsuit filed in March of 2024 named the county, which runs the small hospital where Gonzalez was treated, claiming that the staff violated patient privacy rights when they reported the abortion. An amended complaint alleged that the sheriff's office interviewed Gonzalez and arrested her later under direction from prosecutors.

Earlier this year, Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez was disciplined for allowing murder charges to be filed against Gonzalez, and he agreed to pay a $1,250 fine and have his license held in a probated suspension for 12 months in a settlement reached with the State Bar of Texas.

With the lawsuit able to move forward, David Donatti, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas who is representing Gonzalez, said that what they intend to show is that "negligence doesn't explain this oversight." Donatti also added that "it is the role and function of prosecutors to be aware of the elements of the statutes that they are charging."

According to a report from If/When/How, a reproductive justice group that helps people deal with legal cases related to pregnancy, said that between 2000 and 2020, 61 people were criminally investigated or arrested for allegedly ending their own pregnancies or helping someone else do so.

The greatest concentration of cases was in Texas, followed by Ohio, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Virginia but only 14 of the 61 cases arose in the seven states that had bans on "self-managed abortion" on the books between 2000-20.