‘I’m Bracing Myself’: Texas Congressional Candidate Jessica Cisneros on Lizelle Herrera and the Future of Abortion in the U.S.

On Thursday, April 7, 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera—a resident of Texas’s Rio Grande Valley—was arrested and charged with murder. Her alleged crime? Causing “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.” Herrera was reported to law enforcement by a local hospital, sending a chilling message about the role of so-called “helping professions” in aiding the criminalization of abortion.

Herrera was released after a national outcry, with Starr County’s district attorney saying, “It is my hope that with the dismissal of this case it is made clear that Ms. Herrera did not commit a criminal act under the laws of the state of Texas,” but the case’s disturbing implications linger—not just for Herrera herself, but for pregnant people throughout Texas who are seeing their reproductive freedoms curtailed by the state’s aggressive abortion restrictions.

Elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley, congressional candidate Jessica Cisneros has been running a robust campaign around the protection of reproductive rights. In May, she will head to a runoff election with Rep. Henry Cuellar, who has made his anti-abortion views known and currently serves as the only Democrat on the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. On Friday, Vogue spoke to Cisneros about Herrera’s case, her upcoming election, and the grassroots organizations helping to facilitate abortion access on the ground in her district. Tead the full interview below.

Vogue: You’re six weeks out from your runoff election; what does life look like for you at the moment?

Jessica Cisneros: It’s pretty constant campaign work, and has been since March 2, the day that we officially went to a runoff. We did take a few days off after that, but we knew we only had 11 or 12 weeks, so it’s just been go, go, go. We’re really proud and honored to be in the first runoff in the history of our congressional district.

I know the Lizelle Herrera case hit close to home for your district. Can you tell me how you first heard the news that she had been arrested?

I found out about it on a Friday. I was working with some campaign members, going over our strategy for the next week, and someone asked me, “Have you seen this?” As soon as I did, I was just in shock; I immediately texted a friend who does repro rights work in Texas, and we were trying to figure out what was going on. As someone who has defended folks through a criminal defense clinic when I was in law school, I was familiar with the criminal penal code, and I was like, “What are we doing? How is this even happening?” It was very confusing, and a lot of people were reaching out to me, because Starr County is in the district, and they were trying to find counsel for Herrera. I was just trying to connect people as much as possible. I’m glad to see the charges were dropped, but this shouldn’t even have happened in the first place.