My Interview With La Frontera Fund’s Rockie Gonzalez on Lizelle Herrera’s Arrest In Starr County
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Police in Starr County on the Texas-Mexico border arrested and charged 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera with murder for allegedly performing what they called a “self-induced abortion.”
La Frontera Fund, a Rio Grande Valley-based abortion assistance fund, planned a protest for Saturday morning outside the Starr County Jail where Herrera remains in custody on a $500,000 bond.
In this Friday night interview, I speak with Rockie Gonzalez, founder and chairman of La Frontera Fund about Herrera’s case.
You can read the breaking news article on this case here: Texas woman charged with murder for ‘self-induced abortion’
Listen below on this page:
You can also listen to this interview on Soundcloud here: Interview With La Frontera Fund’s Rockie Gonzalez on Lizelle Herrera’s Arrest In Starr County
Full Transcript:
This week police in Starr County arrested and charged Lizelle Herrera with murder for allegedly performing what the report said was a “self-induced abortion.”
Herrera remains in the custody of the Starr County Sheriff’s Office with a bond set at $500,000.
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.
Is this the first kind of case like this that you’ve seen in the Rio Grande Valley?
It definitely is. And it follows the precedent that happens in the Rio Grande Valley when laws are made that restrict reproductive rights. A lot of the abortion advocacy community will refer to Rosie Jimenez, who was the first documented death due to the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1972.
Now I’m seeing some conflicting reports locally about what actually happened in this case. I’ve seen some details being shared on social media that I haven’t been able to confirm. I have the police report, but have you or your legal team made contact with anyone related to this to get more details?
Not yet. It’s all allegedly at this point in time. What we know is that 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. And then she was arrested and her bail was set at half a million dollars.
It’s my understanding that this wouldn’t fall under the purview of the recent SB8 bill. That authorizes people in Texas to sue for what they see as an illegal abortion for statutory damages even before many people can even know they’re pregnant sometimes. But it’s created a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. For people in the medical field who might better understand the situation this creates, it confuses me to think that they’re the ones who went to the police. Why do you think that they might have done this now?
Well, what we experience as advocates of reproductive rights, not just abortion–like the human right of all people who have the capacity to get pregnant to make the choices that they want and need for themselves and their families–is a very religious sort of anti-reproductive rights stance in the communities in the Rio Grande Valley.
And this is a really big challenge for us with only one abortion clinic that has been a victim of arson and constant, you know, protest by anti-abortion groups who sort of harass clients coming in and out of the one tiny clinic that serves the whole valley. It’s sort of a culture that we are constantly coming up against. And so for us, it’s no surprise that there are hospital staff who may hold those beliefs and who are willing to comply.
The language of that bill is very criminalizing of people who end their pregnancies and, you know, offers essentially bounties for people of up to $10,000 for reporting what they consider to be quote unquote, legal abortions.
So, it’s not that this woman had an illegal abortion, it’s that she, allegedly like miscarried, ended up in the hospital and was honest with the medical staff who then reported her and we have yet to be able to actually confirm any of those things in the story is is you know, just breaking and we’re waiting for details to be confirmed.
You mentioned earlier that you will be offering legal support for Herrera. What will that look like?
Yes, we have a legal team. And we have a lot of support, like I said, across the state, in our region, and nationally–the national network that we are a part of. We work in coalition statewide with other abortion funds and abortion advocacy groups. And so we have the means and the ability to pull the resources that we need because we have a national community behind us to support us. So we will get her legal support paid for. If we can contact the family, we will not stop until she’s released and we have justice for Lizelle.
Your organization has quickly put together a political action in response to this. You’ll be at the Starr County Jail tomorrow morning protesting Herrera’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.
Rockie, thank you so much for taking my call tonight. I know your organization is very busy at the moment so I do appreciate your time.
Thank you. And, if one more thing, you could also amplify our call to action, which is having folks call the state county jail. It’s on our socials, information or with a script who to call and what to say. We really want to flood them and let them know that the community does not support this action.
Lizelle Herrera remains in the custody of the Starr County Sheriff’s Office under a bond of half a million dollars. This a developing story. I’ll be watching for any developments. Thank you, Rockie.
Thank you so much.
