Court backs U.S. in case of alien teen’s abortion
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case about a pregnant alien teen who obtained an abortion with the help of the ACLU, siding with President Donald Trump’s administration and wiping away a lower-court decision for the teen but rejecting a suggestion that her lawyers should be disciplined.
The decision is about the teen’s individual case and doesn’t disrupt ongoing class-action litigation about the ability of alien teens to obtain abortions while in government custody. The justices ruled in an unsigned opinion that vacating a lower-court decision in favor of the teen, who had been in government custody after entering the country illegally, was the proper course because the case became moot after she obtained an abortion.
Government lawyers had complained to the Supreme Court that attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union didn’t alert them that the teen’s abortion would take place earlier than expected. The administration said that deprived its lawyers of the chance to ask the Supreme Court to block the procedure, at least temporarily.
The Trump administration told the court that discipline might be warranted against the teen’s attorneys. The ACLU said its lawyers did nothing wrong.
The Supreme Court said it took the government’s allegations “seriously,” but the court declined to wade into the finger-pointing between the sides.
“Especially in fast-paced, emergency proceedings like those at issue here, it is critical that lawyers and courts alike be able to rely on one another’s representations. On the other hand, lawyers also have ethical obligations to their clients and not all communications breakdowns constitute misconduct,” the justices wrote in a five-page opinion, adding that the court “need not delve into the factual disputes raised by the parties” in order to vacate the decision for the teen.
The teen at the center of the case entered the U.S. illegally in September as a 17-year-old and was taken to a federally funded shelter in Texas for minors who enter the country without their parents. The unnamed teen, referred to as Jane Doe, learned while in custody that she was pregnant and sought an abortion.
A state court gave her permission, but federal officials — citing a policy of refusing to facilitate abortions for pregnant minors in government-run shelters — refused to transport her or temporarily release her so that others could take her to have the procedure.
The ACLU helped the teen sue the Trump administration, and after a federal appeals court sided with her, the government was preparing to ask the Supreme Court to step in and block the procedure, at least temporarily.
But the teen, allowed out of the shelter by court order, had an abortion first, about 12 hours after a court gave her the goahead. In response, the Trump administration, in an unusual filing with the Supreme Court, cried foul. The The ACLU has defended its attorneys’ actions, saying government lawyers made assumptions about the timing of the teen’s abortion.
Even though Jane Doe was able to get an abortion, the lawsuit that began with her has continued and could return to the Supreme Court at some point. Scott Lloyd, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees shelters for minors who are in the country illegally and unaccompanied by an adult, has said he believes that teens in his agency’s care have no constitutional right to abortion.
Since the Jane Doe case was filed, several other pregnant teens in the agency’s care have come forward seeking abortions and have been represented by the ACLU. In two cases, the teens were released from custody and were able to seek the procedure on their own. In another case, the teen, a 17-year-old rape victim, got a court order allowing her to obtain an abortion and the government stopped attempting to block the procedure.
In March, after a request from the ACLU, a judge barred the Trump administration from interfering with the ability of such pregnant teens in its custody to obtain abortions while a class-action lawsuit against the administration goes forward.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the Trump administration to post notices in government-run shelters that tell pregnant girls and women that they have a right to decide whether to have the baby or to end their pregnancies. The government is appealing the order.