Friday, October 13, 2017

COURT DENIES UNDOCUMENTED GIRL HERE ABORTION HEARING

A section of border fence near Brownsville.
By Giulia Afiune
The Texas Tribune
A federal court has refused to hear the case of a pregnant 17-year-old undocumented immigrant in Brownsville at the center of a legal dispute over whether unaccompanied immigrant minors have the right to an abortion in the United States.

After being caught by immigration authorities, Jane Doe, as she's referred to in court filings, is currently at a shelter in Brownsville in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a federal agency responsible for refugees and unaccompanied undocumented minors. Doe is seeking an emergency court order authorizing her to access abortion services after the federal office blocked her from attending a pre-abortion medical appointment, according to Susan Hays, legal director of Jane's Due Process, a nonprofit that provides legal representation for pregnant minors in Texas.

(Her defense attorney said she was raped at the ti,e she crossed the border.)

In a hearing Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the American Civil Liberties Union tried to add Doe to a June 2016 case against the federal government – then run by the Obama administration – for allegedly allowing some religiously affiliated shelters to impose their religion on minors by prohibiting their access to abortion.

The California judge denied the request, arguing that she couldn't hear Doe's case because Doe is in Texas. However, the judge did say that "the government has no business blocking Jane Doe's abortion," said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project, in a statement after the ruling.

“Today’s District Court ruling comes as a serious disappointment, because it delays Jane Doe’s abortion even further,” Amiri said. "Jane Doe has already been blocked by the Trump administration from two appointments related to her abortion care. But she has shown tremendous courage and persistence, and we’re not giving up."

Both the ACLU and Jane's Due Process informed that they would continue to pursue a court ruling requiring the Office of Refugee Resettlement to let Doe leave the shelter to get the abortion she wants.

Hays said Doe already has the court authorization required for the procedure itself. Under Texas law, minors need their parents' permission or a court order to get an abortion.

"On Sept. 28, she was scheduled to go get her options counseling and state law-mandated sonogram by the same physician that will perform the abortion," Hays said. The young woman was scheduled for an abortion the next day.

But the Office of Refugee Resettlement refused to let Doe leave the shelter to go to the clinic, even accompanied by her guardian and attorney ad litem – the people who are appointed by a judge to be responsible for minors in her situation.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course she doesn't have a right! She is a minor. You know she is lying. On the other side she will have her anchor baby! My solution would be deport her! Send her back to her country, make it their problem! She could of easilybhad an abortion in mexio for a much dmaller fee. She chose to come to the united states, no one forced her. She should of asked for asylumn in Mexico. I'm sure she chose the us a because everyone k ow's how he Eros our government is. Its Time to stop with the handouts. Make america great again, go Trump.

Anonymous said...

So get a go fund page and let all her Atty donate for the cause better yet send her packing see what her country does for her

Anonymous said...

Well this is gonna sound bad, but if she is kept here long enough, she might even have her baby on American soil, and she will have every housing, good stamp, medical health insurance, and why because your child is born in America soil.... If she wants to aboard her pregnancy she should... one less person I would need to help raise

Anonymous said...

Dang right.

rita