A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a 17-year-old illegal alien being held in a federal detention facility can receive an abortion, effectively setting the stage for the United States to become an abortion destination for illegal immigrants.
The court’s decision Tuesday nixed an earlier ruling that had given the Trump administration until Oct. 31 to try and find the girl an adult sponsor, which would have removed her from federal custody. Doe's ACLU lawyers argued that no suitable sponsor had been found.
The ruling was apparently split along partisan lines, with six Democrat-appointed judges ruling in favor, three Republican appointees ruling against, and one Democrat appointee abstaining, Politico reports.
Acknowledged only as “Jane Doe,” the minor is reportedly being held at an HHS Rio Grande Valley facility in Texas and is 16 weeks pregnant, close to the state’s 20-week abortion limit.
The ruling is being hailed as a victory by pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL – who, ironically, simultaneously claim to care about immigrant children.
Aside from the tragic news that yet another four-month-old preborn child is likely to die at the hands of an abortionist in the very near future, that may just mark the beginning of this ruling’s fallout. Pro-lifers rightly argue that the court’s ruling granting an illegal alien woman abortion services while in federal custody sets the stage for other illegal immigrants to view unlawfully crossing the border as a pathway to obtaining an abortion, a procedure that’s heavily restricted or even flat-out illegal in many Latin American countries.
"Expanding a so-called 'right’ of a taxpayer-facilitated abortion to apply to any woman who happens to be on U.S. soil goes against the pro-life views of a majority of Americans, and certainly against the views of most Americans who don't want their tax dollars paying to end life," said Kristan Hawkins, president of the pro-life Students For Life. "The United States should not become an abortion destination spot for the world. Shame on Planned Parenthood and the ACLU for using this teenager to try and create Roe v. Wade 2.0 in the courts."
Hawkins added that abortion groups could have found a sponsor for Jane Doe and cleared the pathway for her to obtain an abortion that way, but instead chose to drag the process through the courts in order to establish a legal precedent for offering abortions to all women on U.S. soil, regardless of their citizenship or legal status.
It’s not immediately clear who will pay for Jane Doe’s abortion, as the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds from paying for abortion procedures. While federal taxpayer dollars can’t be used to fund the procedure, however, they are used to fund housing facilities, counseling and legal services, and medical care for illegal immigrants, a seriously conflict of conscience for many pro-life taxpayers -- and those who simply don't want to pay for abortions -- if the U.S. becomes widely seen as an abortion-seeker’s destination.