February is Sexual and Reproductive Health Awareness Month. Please join us on February 19, 2025, for Abortion Bans, Criminal Law, and Pregnancy Prosecution in Texas, presented by the Sissy Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project. Texas’s criminalization of abortion has created new questions at the intersection of criminal law and healthcare access. The ramifications and extent of these laws are still being litigated and lived in Texas. This presentation will cover the important statutory provisions and the most current case law to dispel misinformation and disinformation that exists. We will also share information about Texas prosecutions we are tracking.

The presenters are:

Blake Rocap is the director of the Sissy Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project [wkq4tmkab.cc.rs6.net] at the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice housed at Texas Law. He is also the legal director of Jane’s Due Process, an abortion fund that serves young people, where he has represented minors in judicial bypass cases since 2003. He is an expert on state abortion law and policy serving as AVOW’s (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice Texas) Legislative Counsel since 2009 and is also board certified in legislative and campaign law. He and his wife have lived in Austin for almost thirty years with a succession of labradors and their two daughters who are now inexplicably teenagers.

Cristina I. Ramirez is the criminal defense lead of the Sissy Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project [wkq4tmkab.cc.rs6.net] at UT Law’s Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice. Prior to this role, Cristina served as a public defender in the Travis County Public Defender’s Office, where she represented clients on misdemeanor and felony charges, as well as collateral ALR, parole, and protective order hearings. She previously worked in the Criminal Defense Practice at the Legal Aid Society in New York City and the Dallas County Public Defender’s Office. Cristina received a B.S in Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. While in law school, Cristina represented juvenile and adult clients as part of the Criminal Defense Clinic. She interned at the New England Innocence Project, Dallas County Public Defender’s Office, and the Public Defender Service for D.C. Cristina is barred in Texas and New York.

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