ABORTION/HHS/IMMIGRATION/LEGAL: “The Trump administration is preventing an undocumented, pregnant teenager detained in a Brownsville refugee shelter from getting an abortion in a policy shift with big implications for hundreds of other pregnant, unaccompanied minors held in such shelters…
For the last seven months, the Health and Human Services Department has intervened to prevent abortions sought by girls at federally funded shelters, even in cases of rape and incest and when the teen had a way to pay for the procedure. The agency has instead forced minors to visit crisis pregnancy centers, religiously affiliated groups that counsel women against having abortions, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, interviews with sources involved in the Brownsville case and those familiar with the agency’s policy…
The ACLU brought suit on Friday [10-13-17] on behalf of the 17-year-old in the Brownsville shelter, contending HHS has barred the girl, now about 14 weeks pregnant, from getting the abortion even though she got a judge’s permission to have it without parental consent and has obtained the money to pay for it. Abortions after 20 weeks are illegal under Texas law…
But officials at the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of HHS, refused to transport her to her abortion appointment, instead taking her to a crisis pregnancy center, and calling her mother in her home country to tell her about the pregnancy, according to the ACLU suit and Amiri.”
-Renuka Rayasam, “Trump official halts abortions among undocumented, pregnant teens,” Politico, Oct. 16, 2017 09:53pm