Power

Trump Administration Wants Power to Block Abortion Access for All Unaccompanied Immigrant Minors

“We won’t let this distract us from the real issue here, which is that there are many more young women like Jane Doe out there who are still unable to get the care they need because of the Trump administration’s unconstitutional policies."

On October 20, protesters rally in support of Jane Doe during the #JusticeforJane rally outside of the Department of Health and Human Services building in D.C. Lauryn Gutierrez / Rewire

Read more of our coverage of Jane Doe’s case here.

The Department of Justice has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the case of an unaccompanied pregnant minor the Trump administration went to extraordinary lengths to prevent from receiving abortion care. 

Solicitor General Noel Francisco, one of President Trump’s recently confirmed anti-choice nominees, on Friday asked the Court to vacate the the lower courts’ orders to the federal government to release the teenage immigrant, Jane Doe, from custody and allow her to get an abortion. 

The petition asks the Supreme Court to send the case back to the district court and order that court to dismiss claims that additional pregnant unaccompanied minors may have against the Trump administration for blocking their access to an abortion.

According to her attorneys, Jane Doe’s experience with the Trump administration blocking abortion access is not an isolated case, but rather part of a new administration policy to block access to abortion care for all pregnant immigrant minors in detention. 

Doe’s attorneys, including ones from the American Civil Liberties Union, have not yet filed a response to the request and their case against the Trump administration’s policy remains ongoing. In a statement issued after the filing, ACLU Legal Director David Cole blasted the Department of Justice, saying “[t]he Trump administration blocked Jane Doe from getting constitutionally protected care for a month and subjected her to illegal obstruction, coercion, and shaming as she waited.”

“After the courts cleared the way for her to get her abortion, it was the ACLU’s job as her lawyers to see that she wasn’t delayed any further—not to give the government another chance to stand in her way,” Cole said. 

The Department of Justice took its petition one step further than asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the case; it asked the Court to discipline Doe’s attorney for what the department claims are “material misrepresentations and omissions to government counsel” concerning the release of Doe and the timing of her abortion, claiming those misrepresentations were “designed to thwart this Court’s review” of Doe’s case before she underwent the procedure. 

The ACLU called the Trump administration’s filing and claims a distraction.

“We won’t let this distract us from the real issue here, which is that there are many more young women like Jane Doe out there who are still unable to get the care they need because of the Trump administration’s unconstitutional policies,” Cole said.