A federal judge, Tanya Chutkan, on Wednesday ordered the U.S. government to allow an illegal immigrant 17 year old pregnant teenager in its custody, to have an abortion per her request.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, which represents the pregnant teenager, praised the judge’s ruling as a major victory for abortion and immigrant rights.
Brigitte Amiri, a senior ACLU staff attorney who argued the case on Wednesday said: “We never should have had to fight this in the first place,” said . “It should never have been something that we needed to go to court over.”
Late Wednesday, however, the Justice Department appealed the case, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling.
The government asked the appeals court to rule by 9 p.m. on Thursday, to prevent the teenager, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, from having an “irreversible elective abortion” while the appeal is pending.
The government said the teenager, who is in her 15th week of pregnancy, “still has a number of weeks in which she could legally and safely obtain an abortion.” Chutkan had ordered the government to allow the teen to visit the abortion provider located closest to her shelter in Texas on Thursday and undergo state-mandated counseling before terminating the pregnancy either on Friday or Saturday.
According to Texas abortion law, a woman can’t have an abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. “Failure to comply with the terms of this Order may result in a finding of contempt,” wrote Chutkan, who was appointed by former US President Barack Obama.
