HHS/IMMIGRATION/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A federal judge considering whether to order the Trump administration to allow abortions for two pregnant, 17-year-old girls in immigration custody heard Monday [12-18-17] that a top Health and Human Services official has decided it is not in the best interests of one of the young women to terminate her pregnancy.
Office of Refugee Resettlement Director Scott Lloyd made the decision Sunday regarding a teen who is believed to be about 22 weeks pregnant, Justice Department attorney August Flentje told U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan…
Chutkan sounded puzzled by the development, noting that in the state where the young woman is located, no parental or judicial permission is needed for a 17-year-old to receive an abortion…
Chutkan initially ordered the government to submit details on Lloyd’s decision by 5 P.M. Monday, but she later moved the deadline up to 3 P.M. at the request of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the young women and has asked the judge for a temporary restraining order to allow the two girls to get abortions. The Trump administration signaled Monday that it plans to take the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
Few details have been made public about the two teens at the center of the newest round of the continuing dispute, but discussions in the courtroom indicated they arrived in the U.S. without their parents and are in two different states and not in Texas, where an earlier fight arose over the administration’s resistance to another 17-year-old detainee’s abortion request.”
-Josh Gerstein, “Judge mulls abortion access for two teen immigrants in U.S. custody,” Politico, Dec. 18, 2017 01:01pm