Supporters demonstrate for ‘Jane Doe’ in Texas
Activists with Planned Parenthood show support for a pregnant 17-year-old being held in a Texas facility for unaccompanied immigrant children to obtain an abortion, by demonstrating in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
WASHINGTON — A District of Columbia appeals court has ruled that a pregnant teenage immigrant who is in U.S. custody must be allowed to have an abortion, but gave the federal government until Oct. 31 to find her a sponsor so that the government does not have to facilitate the procedure.
Lawyers for the girl said in court Friday morning that it would be difficult to find a government-approved sponsor, who essentially would take custody of the teen, who is being held in a special detention facility for minors caught crossing the border into the United States illegally.
‘Fairly quick matters’
The teen, who is identified in court papers as “Jane Doe,” is 15 weeks pregnant and has been seeking an abortion since late September. Texas law bans abortion after 20 weeks, and requires patients seeking abortions to undergo counseling by a doctor at least 24 hours before the procedure.
Federal judges weighing the case of a Central American teenager seeking to end her pregnancy seemed inclined on Friday to resolve the issue without wading into the explosive mix of immigration and abortion law — but at the same time acknowledged that such action may be impossible.
“Fairly quickly matters. We’re at a point where days matter,” Judge Patricia Millett said during the emergency hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The 17-year-old’s case reached the federal appeals court in Washington after a District Court judge on Wednesday ordered government officials to allow the teen to have an abortion “without delay.”
The Trump administration appealed, saying it is not obligated to facilitate an abortion in part because the U.S. government has an interest in “promoting child birth and fetal life.”
Lawyers for the government say they are not denying the teenager the right to abortion guaranteed by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, because the girl could voluntarily leave the United States and try to seek an abortion elsewhere or find a sponsor to live with in this country.
Illegal in homeland
At oral argument on Friday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh pressed the government’s attorney several times about why it appears to have a different policy for the teenager than it has for pregnant women locked up in federal prison and for adult women in immigration detention.
For those women in federal custody, he noted, the government does facilitate abortions.
Immigrant minors in custody for entering the U.S. illegally are overseen by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. Under the Trump administration, that office has actively discouraged teens in its custody from having abortions, according to court filings.
The government’s lawyer, Catherine Dorsey, told the court Friday that incarcerated women do not have the same options as the pregnant teen: returning home to seek an abortion or finding a legal sponsor.
But she also acknowledged publicly for the first time that abortion is illegal in the teenager’s homeland. The name of that country has been withheld to protect the teen’s privacy.
Dorsey struggled at times to answer the judges’ questions, repeatedly saying, “I don’t know” and declining to state whether the government believes the teen has a constitutional right to an abortion.
“Even if she has that right, we don’t have to facilitate it,” Dorsey said, adding that government officials are “looking out for the best interest of the minor child” in federal custody.
Sponsors fell through
Brigitte Amiri, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing the teenager, told the court that two potential sponsors already had fallen through and said the often lengthy process of approving a sponsor includes background checks and possible a home visit.
She urged the court not to set aside its obligation to protect the teen’s constitutional right to abortion just because she may eventually obtain a sponsor, and said the government is not acting in the teen’s best interest.
“They are supplanting their decision about what she should do with her pregnancy,” Amiri said. “That’s a veto power over her abortion decision.”
A state judge in Texas ruled in September that the teen could bypass the state’s parental consent requirement to obtain an abortion.
Millett suggested that a federal policy should not override the decision of a state court judge.
The appeals court allowed the teen to undergo the counseling Texas law requires on Thursday, as ordered by the lower court judge. But the panel has temporarily blocked that judge’s order to allow the abortion to proceed.