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Today is Rosie Jimenez Day. With Hyde again a playing card, it's important you know her story.
https://www.texasobserver.org/rosie-jimenez-abortion-medicaid/On a June afternoon in McAllen in 1978, Diana Rivera, posing as a young pregnant woman, walked into the home of a local midwife. At Rivera’s side was a female friend, who was wearing a small, concealed microphone. Outside, two older women, both abortion rights activists and writers, waited in a parked station wagon with a Dallas television crew, listening in. The day before, Rivera, a self-possessed college student and single mother, had arranged to meet the midwife, Maria Pineda, middle aged with some 12 years in practice. Rivera told her that she needed to get an abortion quickly, before her father found out, and couldn’t afford an OB-GYN. Pineda, who was licensed to deliver babies but not perform abortions, responded that she could do the procedure for $125, and they agreed to meet at 1:30 p.m. the next day.
The price was key. Although abortion was legalized in 1973, the 1976 Hyde Amendment had banned the use of Medicaid for the procedure. Without the federally subsidized insurance, many women couldn’t afford the $230 that McAllen OB-GYNs typically charged. The amendment — calculated to keep women from getting abortions in the same way that Texas’ recent abortion laws have been engineered — instead forced them to seek less expensive options.
Once Rivera and the friend were inside the home, a worn wooden house, the midwife took them into a separate room and locked the door. There was a bed and a cot, and Rivera spotted medical instruments sitting in a jar of dirty water. By then, she was crying out of nervousness and anger.
Nine months earlier, her best friend, Rosie Jimenez, had been treated by Pineda with disastrous consequences. For Rivera, this amateur sting operation was a way to bring down harsh repercussions on the midwife. In Rivera’s perfect world, the midwife would never practice again.
The price was key. Although abortion was legalized in 1973, the 1976 Hyde Amendment had banned the use of Medicaid for the procedure. Without the federally subsidized insurance, many women couldn’t afford the $230 that McAllen OB-GYNs typically charged. The amendment — calculated to keep women from getting abortions in the same way that Texas’ recent abortion laws have been engineered — instead forced them to seek less expensive options.
Once Rivera and the friend were inside the home, a worn wooden house, the midwife took them into a separate room and locked the door. There was a bed and a cot, and Rivera spotted medical instruments sitting in a jar of dirty water. By then, she was crying out of nervousness and anger.
Nine months earlier, her best friend, Rosie Jimenez, had been treated by Pineda with disastrous consequences. For Rivera, this amateur sting operation was a way to bring down harsh repercussions on the midwife. In Rivera’s perfect world, the midwife would never practice again.
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Thank you for this post. 
