Judge clears abortions for two immigrant teens in U.S. custody
One teen is 10 weeks pregnant. The other is 22 weeks along.
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Ann E. Marimow.
Since March, the Trump administration has refused to “facilitate” abortions for unaccompanied minors taken into federal custody after crossing the border illegally. When an undocumented teen being held in a federal facility in Texas requested an abortion, the government refused.
She went to court, and after a weeks-long court battle in October, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the government to let the teen have an abortion “promptly and without delay.”
On Monday, Chutkan presided over a similar case in which two more pregnant immigrant teens in federal custody asked a judge in Washington to direct the Trump administration to allow them to obtain abortions. Both are 17. The court filings do not detail in which state the two teens are being held.
Again, Chutkan ordered the Trump administration to allow them access abortion services.
Within an hour of the judge’s ruling, the administration had simultaneously asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court to intervene.
In her ruling Monday, Chutkan cited the need to “preserve [the teens’] constitutional right to decide whether to carry their pregnancies to term.”
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union represented the two teens. They say the Trump administration’s new policy is an unconstitutional ban on abortion because it strips them of their right to make an independent decision about becoming a parent.
“It’s unreal that the federal government is trying to force more young women to continue their pregnancies against their will,” Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU said in a statement.
Who are the teens?
One teen, identified as Jane Roe, is about 10 weeks pregnant and, after being counseled about her options, asked for an abortion. She is in the final stages of obtaining a sponsor in the U.S., according to the government.
The other, identified as Jane Poe, requested an abortion earlier this month after being told by her doctor that she is approaching the point in her pregnancy — now 22 weeks — after which she will no longer be able to obtain an abortion.
Jane Poe decided as recently as Dec. 4 that she did not want an abortion, and only last week changed her mind to proceed, according to the government.
“There has been no judicial determination that either Ms. Roe or Ms. Poe, both 17 year old minors, are sufficiently mature to make their abortion decision,” the government lawyers say.
ACLU attorneys say Jane Roe and Jane Poe have been prevented from accessing abortion services.
An ongoing case
After the girl got an abortion on Oct. 25, the administration also asked the Supreme Court to dismiss all other claims and to wipe out the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that had allowed the procedure in October.
The administration also took the unusual step of asking the Supreme Court to consider disciplinary action against the girl’s lawyers for what it says were misleading statements that meant the government missed the time window for trying to get a court order to stop the abortion.
The girl’s legal team has called the assertions about misleading statements “baseless” and said attorneys acted in the teen’s best interests and fully complied with the law.
Under the administration of President Barack Obama, the government did not pay for abortions for teens in custody except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the woman’s life. But officials did not block immigrants in U.S. custody from having abortions at their own expense.
In court filings, the government says the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for caring for detained unaccompanied minors, “has strong and constitutionally legitimate interests in promoting its interest in life, in refusing to facilitate abortion, and in not providing incentives for pregnant minors to illegally cross the border to obtain elective abortions while in federal custody.”
