A Texas woman is suing the prosecutors who charged her with murder after her self-induced abortion
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A woman in Texas is suing prosecutors and Starr County for more than US$1 million after she was arrested and unlawfully charged with murder for an abortion she had in 2022.
A woman in Texas is suing prosecutors and Starr County for more than US$1 million after she was arrested and unlawfully charged with murder for an abortion she had in 2022.
Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested and charged with murder in Starr County, Texas, in 2022 after using abortion medication to self-induce an abortion 19 weeks into her pregnancy. The then-26-year-old spent two nights in jail, as her name, mugshot and private medical information made national news, the lawsuit said. The charges were dismissed days later.
The arrest took place months before Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court and at a time when abortions after six weeks were illegal in Texas. However, pregnant people cannot be criminally prosecuted for their own abortions under state law – not now, nor at the time of Gonzalez’s 2022 arrest.
Gonzalez is now suing prosecutors, claiming in her lawsuit they knowingly misrepresented facts and disregarded her rights in order to have her arrested and charged, irrevocably changing the course of her life.
The complaint was filed last week against Gocha Allen Ramirez, the Starr County district attorney, Alexandria Lynn Barrera, the assistant district attorney, and the county itself. CNN has reached out to all the defendants.
“We have no doubt that the Starr County District Attorney, and his office, were well-aware that Texas law exempts a woman who receives an abortion, by any means, from a murder charge and yet chose to pursue an unjust and unconstitutional indictment,” Gonzalez’s attorneys, Cecilia Garza and Veronica S. Martinez, told CNN in a statement. “Such a flagrant violation of Ms. Gonzalez’s basic civil rights cannot be regarded as a mere ‘mistake.’”
Ramirez is facing professional consequences beyond the lawsuit.
