ABORTION/HHS/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Renewed Trump administration efforts to prevent undocumented teens in U.S. custody from obtaining abortions suffered setbacks this week, but the ongoing court battle shows no signs of subsiding.
The Justice Department said Tuesday [12-19-17] that one teen in custody who is seeking an abortion was a 19-year-old adult, not a 17-year-old as initially thought, meaning she wasn’t subject to the government policy that deals with undocumented minors. The department said she was being released on her own recognizance.
The department had already chosen not to seek a stay of a trial judge’s ruling Monday that it must allow another detainee, who is 17, to leave custody in order to have an abortion. That teen was in her second trimester and her window for an abortion was closing.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in a court order Monday that the administration policy of barring abortion access for illegal immigrant minors in custody appeared to violate constitutional protections for abortion rights.
The Justice Department in response simultaneously sought intervention by an appeals court and the Supreme Court, but Tuesday’s developments left nothing for those courts to consider for now, leaving unsettled the constitutional question at the heart of the dispute—whether undocumented minors can claim the same abortion rights as U.S. citizens…
No court has yet issued a final ruling on the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s approach.”
-Brent Kendall, “Trump Administration Effort to Block Illegal Immigrants’ Abortions Suffers Setbacks,” The Wall Street Journal online, Dec. 19, 2017 10:25pm