National Right to Life
Veteran Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston reported today that the Supreme has decided to “move ahead on the dispute over teen abortions.” He is referring to the case of three undocumented pregnant girls whom the ACLU has so far successfully argued ought to be allowed to abort.
Denniston begins
The Supreme Court plans to take up at its first private conference in the new year the intense, ongoing fight over an unsettled constitutional question – do undocumented immigrant teenagers who are pregnant have a right to an abortion? That question remains open even though three of those young women have had abortions or are now free to have the procedure.
The Justices are now scheduled to discuss on January 5 the Trump Administration’s appeal, seeking a clear-cut ruling that government officials have no legal duty to do anything to help secure abortions for teenagers being held in custody after they entered the country illegally.
The justices will juggle a multiplicity of issues and arguments. The ACLU’s position is clear. Their lawsuit seeks the right to abort “of all detained teenagers who are or might become pregnant.”
Thus far, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has agreed that all three teenagers must be allowed to abort and so ordered. In response to the latest cases of “Jane Doe” and “Jane Poe,” the government said
“We are deeply disappointed in the decision [by Judge Chutkan] to grant a temporary restraining order that will compel HHS to facilitate abortions for minors when they are not medically necessary,” spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told POLITICO.
“A pregnant minor who has entered the country illegally has the option to voluntarily depart to her home country or identify a suitable sponsor. 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.”
That has been the Trump administration’s position from the beginning: the government is not obliged to “facilitate” these abortions. (As Denniston noted, “Since the Supreme Court has ruled that women in general have a constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, and that government may not impose an ‘undue burden’ on that right, the Trump legal team takes the view that failing to facilitate an abortion does not impose any such burden.”)
The Department of Justice argues that these pregnant teenagers may either go back to their home country of origin or “identify a suitable sponsor” but not simply be released on their own recognizance.
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