Judge clears abortions for two immigrant teens in U.S. custody
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration on Monday to “promptly and without delay” allow two pregnant immigrant teens in U.S. custody to 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.
The individual cases are part of a broader lawsuit challenging the government’s new policy of discouraging, and even blocking, undocumented teens in custody from terminating pregnancies.
In her ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan cited the need to “preserve [the teens’] constitutional right to decide whether to carry their pregnancies to term.”
Both of the teens are 17. One is 10 weeks pregnant and the other is about 22 weeks pregnant.
If the government continues to block the teenagers’ access to abortion, the judge wrote, they “will both suffer irreparable injury in the form of, at a minimum, increased risk to their health, and perhaps the permanent inability to obtain a desired abortion to which they are legally entitled.”
The case in federal court in the District was initially brought by a Central American girl who was able to terminate her pregnancy in October following a highprofile legal battle over the policy that already was pending in the Supreme Court.
Chutkan, the same judge who ordered the government to step aside in the case of the first teen in October, put her Monday order on hold for 24 hours.
Since March, the Trump administration has refused to “facilitate” abortions for unaccompanied minors taken into federal custody after crossing the border illegally. The government says the minors have the option of voluntarily returning to their home countries or could be released to sponsors in the United States who presumably could help them end their pregnancies.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for caring for detained unaccompanied minors, said in a statement after the new ruling, “We are deeply disappointed in the decision to grant a temporary restraining order that will compel HHS to facilitate abortions for minors when they are not medically necessary.”
“HHS-funded facilities that provide temporary shelter and care for unaccompanied alien minors should not become way stations for these children to get taxpayer-facilitated abortions.”
At a hearing earlier Monday, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union who are representing the two girls in the most recent instances said in court that the administration’s new policy is an unconstitutional ban on abortion because it strips the teens of their right to make an independent decision about becoming a parent.
“They are in U.S. custody and being forced to continue their pregnancies against their will,” said Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU.