A young Jane Doe trapped in abuse, coercion
Feds are imposing their beliefs on an immigrant teen seeking procedure
The federal government’s relentless effort to prevent an unaccompanied minor from getting an abortion, even after a Texas state district judge has waived her need for a guardian’s consent, is shameful.
On Wednesday, a federal district judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that federal agencies detaining the 17-year-old unauthorized immigrant cannot prevent her from having the abortion.
Nor can the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement or its parent agencies retaliate against the teen, only identified in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe,” for choosing to end her unwanted pregnancy, said U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. The federal departments also must not reveal her decision to have an abortion to anyone else, Chutkan ruled.
However, on Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the teen’s access to an abortion and instead said the federal government had until Oct. 31 to release her to a sponsor — avoiding the question about her right to choose.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement is led by an anti-abortion rights advocate who informed Jane’s mother about her pregnancy. It also took her to a crisis pregnancy center for a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound, though it balked at transporting her, as she wished, to an abortion clinic.
Whatever the outcome in this case, teenage girls in desperate situations remain at risk of having their constitutional right abrogated, and the Trump administration’s head of the ORR office, Scott Lloyd, is unlikely to cease his harassments.
For 17 years, I have fought back against the state of Texas for their ever more intrusive curtailment of the rights of Jane
Does. I represented the first Jane Doe in Austin who needed an abortion just after Texas passed the law requiring parental notification or a judicial waiver for a minor seeking an abortion. Since then, I have remained committed to helping these young women who, under dire circumstances, are asserting their fundamental right to determine the course of their lives. As a board member of Jane’s Due Process, I am appalled by the federal government’s treatment of another Jane Doe.
In the latest case, the 17-year-old was pregnant when she arrived in this country. Presumably, she believed she had found here a place of refuge where she could seek asylum from an abusive family and violent home country.
From the beginning, she stated that she wanted an abortion. With the help of local counsel and Jane’s Due Process, she obtained a judicial bypass from a state district judge that allowed her to consent to her own abortion. But for more than three weeks, Jane has been on lock-down, prohibited from activities and followed everywhere by a shelter worker. Her travel to a clinic must be personally authorized by the federal refugee agency’s director. He has spent his career as an anti-choice lawyer on a crusade to control women’s reproductive decisions. He is abusing his position of power to force the minors under his custody to continue their pregnancies against their will.
This is not the first case, and I expect, will not be the last case where an anti-choice advocate from Washington is making very personal decisions for a pregnant immigrant, thousands of miles away.
As a family lawyer, I am familiar with coercion and abuse. The fact that the federal government proactively denied this Jane Doe access to the medical care that has been approved by the state district judge is abuse. It appears as though Trump administration officials intend to detain all Jane Does until they submit to their religious opinions or agree to be deported to the violent countries they have fled.
I stand with this Jane Doe and all of the other Janes Doe under government control.