Trump administration seeks to deny fourth undocumented immigrant right to abortion

Courts have allowed the other women to get abortions, but stopped short of striking down the government's overall policy

An unidentified, pregnant immigrant waits near a Border Patrol truck after turning herself in to officials in 2015 (Getty Images)

The Trump administration is attempting to block another undocumented immigrant in federal custody from seeking an abortion for the fourth time in as many months.

A 17-year-old girl has been “pushed.. further into her pregnancy” after the federal government denied her attempt to get an abortion — with her own money — two weeks ago, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The denied abortion is the latest example of the efforts taken by Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Director Scott Lloyd, a former antiabortion activist, to keep young women seeking refuge in the United States from access to abortion. Under the directive of a memo written by Mr Lloyd last year, at least three other women have been told they can’t receive the procedure, and advocates are concerned there may be many more going unnoticed.

“What haunts me… What keeps me up at night is the thought that there are young women out there that we might never know about, who are forced to carry their pregnancies to term against their will because the government coerced them, persuaded them to do so, and they will never have a voice, they will never get to us,” Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Reproductive Freedom Project, told The Independent.

So far, the attempts to deny these young women from having abortions has been thwarted once the ACLU has gotten involved, but the specific federal policy — which has its roots in the administration of President George W Bush — has remained in tact.

Of those three young women who the government has previously tried to deny abortion access, at least one was pregnant as a result of rape.

Mr Lloyd has personally pushed for stronger anti-abortion policies in the agency he oversees, saying that the agency is in custody of the young women and their children, and that it cannot allow “killing” while those parties are in its care.

“[W]e are being asked to participate in killing a human being in our care,” Mr Lloyd wrote in a memo discussing the rape victim's pregnancy, which was unsealed as a part of a lawsuit last month. “I cannot direct the program to proceed in this manner. We cannot be a place of refuge while we are at the same time a place of violence. We have to choose, and we ought to choose to protect life rather than to destroy it.”

The ACLU argues that denying these young women access to abortions is a violation of their constitutional rights, and note that the Supreme Court has upheld abortion as a constitutional right.

The latest young woman, referred to as “Jane Moe” in court filings, has not received a court date so far, but Ms Amiri says she expects one promptly.

A spokesman with the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families -- which runs ORR -- said in a statement that the administration does not believe it is its responsibility to facilitate abortions, but that Jane Moe has options if she chooses them.

"The Jane in this case, Jane Moe -- who entered the country illegally -- has the option to voluntarily depart to her home country or find a suitable sponsor," the spokesman said. "If she chooses not to exercise these options HHS does not believe we are required to facilitate Jane Moe's abortion, out of concern and responsibility for the mother's best interests."

Ms Amiri, responding to that reasoning, said that the logic is "absurd", and noted that many of the women had fled dangerous conditions in their home countries.

The ACLU is pushing for the Supreme Court to recognition a class-action lawsuit from these young women, which they hope could overturn the policy that allows the government to attempt to deny abortions in the first place. Until then, abortion cases will continue to be considered peace-meal.

“I think the idea is, yes, we have won on behalf of these young women,” Ms Amiri said, expressing concern that keeping the anti-abortion policy in place could push women into the shadows, but “until we get this policy struck down, there’s the potential that we’ll never hear from these women.”