A judge issued an order Friday evening barring the government from “interfering with or obstructing” pregnant minors’ access to abortion counseling or abortions, among other things, while a lawsuit proceeds. The order covers pregnant minors being held in federal custody after entering the country illegally.
Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for sheltering children who illegally enter the country unaccompanied by a parent, have said the department has a policy of “refusing to facilitate” abortions. And the director of the office that oversees the shelters has said he believes teens in his agency’s care have no constitutional right to abortion.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit on behalf of the minors, which the judge overseeing the case also Friday allowed to go forward as a class action lawsuit.
“We have been able to secure justice for these young pregnant women in government custody who will no longer be subject to the government’s policy of coercion and obstruction while the case continues,” said ACLU attorney Brigitte Amiri after the judge’s order became public.
The government can appeal the judge’s order. A Department of Justice spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Friday evening.
The health department said in a statement Saturday that it “strongly maintains that taxpayers are not responsible for facilitating the abortion of unaccompanied minors who entered the country illegally and are currently in the government’s care.” It said it is “working closely with the Justice Department to review the court’s order and determine next steps.”
The ACLU and Trump administration have been sparring for months over the government’s policy. In a high-profile case last year, the ACLU represented a teen who entered the U.S. illegally in September and learned while in federal custody in Texas that she was pregnant.
The teen, referred to in court paperwork as Jane Doe, obtained a state court order permitting her to have an abortion and secured private funding to pay for it, but federal officials refused to transport her or temporarily release her so that others could take her to get the procedure.
The teen was ultimately able to get an abortion in October as a result of the lawsuit, but the Trump administration has accused the ACLU of misleading the government during the case, a charge the ACLU has denied.
The ACLU has since represented several other teens who have sought abortions while in custody, but the organization doesn’t know of any others actively seeking abortions, Amiri said Friday night. The judge’s order now covers any teens currently in custody or who come in to custody while the lawsuit goes forward.
In a deposition taken in December as part of the litigation, Scott Lloyd, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees shelters for unaccompanied immigrant minors, said pregnant teens in his agency’s care have no right to abortion under the Constitution. Lloyd, who has written about his own opposition to abortion, said he had not approved any abortions since becoming director in March 2017. That included refusing the abortion request of a teen who had been impregnated as a result of rape.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in the ruling Friday that Lloyd and his office are “certainly entitled to maintain an interest in fetal life” and even to prefer that pregnant minors in their custody “choose one course over the other,” but the government can’t create or implement a policy that strips minors “of their right to make their own reproductive choices.” Chutkan was appointed by President Barack Obama.
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If Lloyd is so against abortion he should transfer to ICE where pregnant women picked up and awaiting deportation are routinely denied prenatal healthcare and if they miscarry denied follow-up care. At least he would be advocating for women who wanted their fetuses to develop into live births.
It’s curious that the loudest voices about the evils of big government are not only the biggest beneficiaries, they are the most restrictive of others’ free will. No cognitive dissonance there.
I know this will never happen, but: conspiracy to deny a civil right, check. Under color of law, check. Based on national origin, check.
The irony – or shall I say, the hypocrisy – of the Trump regime’s position on this is that by trying to deny an abortion to a pregnant, undocumented – or in their terms, “illegal” – teen, they are ensuring the birth of what they like to call another “anchor baby,” who will automatically be an American citizen. And no doubt, once that child is born, it will be ripped away from its mother resulting in another destroyed family.
In other words, the only coherency to the current administration’s policy is their vicious desire to bring as much harm to brown people as possible.
From what I understand by reading the reporting – which is not clear – they do their best to get women deported before they give birth. (I think there was a bit about no third-trimester imprisonments.) So first a few months under horrible conditions with no prenatal care, then go out and deliver somewhere, just as long as it’s not here.