For more
than two years, the ACLU has been fighting a Trump administration policy that
prevents unaccompanied immigrant minors in federal care from accessing
abortion. We had previously won in the lower court, securing a preliminary block on
the policy. And last week, the Trump administration chose not to challenge that
ruling and ask the Supreme Court to review the case—a real victory in our fight
for justice for the Janes.
We first filed
the case in October 2017 on behalf of Jane Doe, a fearless young immigrant woman
who fought the Trump administration’s attempt to deny her right to end her
pregnancy. Jane’s win, and her bravery, laid the foundation for our success in
the months that followed in obtaining court orders that blocked the government’s
attempts to prevent other young immigrant women from making their own decisions
about whether to continue or end a pregnancy.
In March
2018, a federal district court issued an order temporarily blocking the government from
enforcing its abortion ban against all
pregnant immigrant minors in its custody, finding the ban to be
unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade and
allowing the case to proceed as a class action.
This past
summer, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
agreed, finding that
the administration’s policy “functions as an across-the-board ban on access to
abortion” for pregnant immigrant minors. In its ruling, the Court unanimously
“reject[ed] the government’s position that its denial of abortion access can be
squared with Supreme Court precedent.”
The Trump
administration had until November 8th to ask the Supreme Court to
overturn our lower court win and allow it to resume its policy of forcing these
teens to remain pregnant against their will. But last Friday came and went, and
the administration filed nothing.
We’re relieved
that the government did not appeal. The government’s failure to ask the Supreme
Court to review the injunction means that the temporary protections we’ve
secured for the Janes will remain in place.
But this
does not mean we can rest easy. The case isn’t over — we’re still fighting in
the district court for final, permanent relief that would close the door on the
government’s efforts to implement its unconstitutional policy for good. And the
Jane Doe case is just one vector of a
full-scale effort by the Trump Administration, along with other federal and state
politicians, to dismantle our hard-won reproductive rights.
Over the
past year, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Utah and Alabama have all passed bans on abortion. The
ACLU has blocked all of these abortion bans from taking effect, and abortion is
still legal in all 50 states. But politicians across the country continue to push
these bans in the hopes that the Supreme Court will use one of them to overturn
Roe v. Wade.
At the
federal level, the Trump administration has sought to strip millions of low-income people who
rely on Title X, the nation’s family planning program, of their ability to access
comprehensive, high-quality reproductive and family planning care. It has
promulgated rules that would have (absent a court order) permitted employers and universities to deny
their employees and students insurance coverage for contraception due to moral
objections. And it has issued other rules — which we just blocked from taking effect — that would have allowed health care providers to refuse to
provide critical health care services based on personal religious or moral
beliefs.
As the old
saying goes, the measure of a nation is reflected in how it treats its most
vulnerable members. Nothing is beyond the pale for this administration in its
attacks on reproductive health care in general, and immigrants in particular, whether
it be ripping children away from their
parents at the border, forcing them to stay in squalid, dangerous conditions in Mexico, or denying them access to
critical medical care.
The
government’s ban on abortion for immigrant minors is just another attempt to
strip some of the most marginalized people in our society of their
constitutional rights — in
this case, young immigrant women of color. Just as your ability to get an
abortion should not depend on where you live, neither should it depend on your
immigration status, age, national origin, race, gender identity, or economic
circumstances. We won’t let up in our fight on multiple fronts to ensure
abortion remains safe and legal for everyone in America, including back in the
district court, where we will resume our efforts on behalf of the Janes to
ensure that this administration’s unconstitutional policy is struck down for
good.