Jane’s Due Process, working with the American Civil Liberties Union and local counsels, Marie Christine Cortez, Attorney Ad Litem, and Rochelle Garza, Guardian Ad Litem, helped an unaccompanied minor known as “Jane Doe” to obtain a court order giving her a right to consent to her own abortion care. Over a month after she made her decision, Jane Doe was able to obtain an abortion after an appeals court in Washington, D.C., issued a decision clearing the way for a federal district court to issue an order requiring the Trump Administration to stop blocking her access and to allow her to get the care she requested.
From KUT/NPR, “What Stood Between an Undocumented Minor and an Abortion? One Trump Appointee”: “A medical exam without consent is assault. A gynecological exam without consent is rape. And the federal government did that to that Jane,” Susan Hays says.
From New York Times, “U.S. Must Let Undocumented Teenager Get an Abortion, Appeals Court Says”: “It is the perfect storm between abortion and immigration, and the Trump administration has shown absolute hostility to both of those issues,” said Brigitte Amiri, the lead lawyer on the case for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Jane Doe.
From The Washington Post, “The Trump Administration is Holding a Teenager Hostage Over Abortion”: “An HHS spokesman compared Lloyd’s role of counseling pregnant minors in his custody to that of a “foster parent,” adding: “He is going to make choices that he thinks are best for both the mother and the child.” But J.D., with the help of a group called Jane’s Due Process, has already convinced a Texas judge — Texas! — that she is mature enough to make the choice herself.”
From The Austin Chronicle, “Court Rules Undocumented Minor Held ‘Hostage’ by Trump Administration Can Access Abortion”: “Fortunately, today’s decision rights a grave constitutional wrong by the government. Remember, we are talking about a child here,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote in a strongly worded concurring opinion. “The court today correctly recognizes that J.D.’s unchallenged right under the Due Process Clause affords [her] a modicum of the dignity, sense of self-worth, and control over her own destiny that life seems to have so far denied her.”
From Rewire, “Federal Government Can’t Stop Immigrant Teen From Having Abortion, Appeals Court Rules”: “Jane’s Due Process outlined how as ORR forces Jane Doe to carry an unwanted pregnancy, not only do her chances of accessing abortion care become slimmer, but the procedure becomes more complicated.”
From Slate, “The Trump Administration Gets Religious”: “The federal government now believes it has a right to promulgate its own quasi-religious viewpoint and—because the government is more powerful than an undocumented teenage girl—the state’s “conscience” negates any choices she makes. The government’s arguments systematically obliterate any notion of Jane Doe’s individual rights, and re-create the law to subordinate her choices to government power.”
Op-ed by our board member, Thomas Ausley, in the Houston Chronicle, “Government must grant pregnant teen access to medical care”: “For 17 years, I have fought back against the state of Texas for their ever more intrusive curtailment of the rights of Jane Does. I represented the first Jane Doe in Austin who needed an abortion just after Texas passed the law requiring parental notification or a judicial waiver for a minor seeking an abortion. Since then, I have remained committed to helping these young women who, under dire circumstances, are asserting their fundamental right to determine the course of their lives. As a board member of Jane’s Due Process, I am appalled by the federal government’s treatment of another Jane Doe.”
From the US News & World Report, “The Jane Doe Burden”: “Jane Doe had to avail herself of the judicial bypass procedure because she was far from her home country and had fled in part because of abuse she suffered at the hands of her parents. Thanks to the help of Jane’s Due Process, a Texas nonprofit dedicated to helping minors in this situation, she received an order from a state court allowing her to have an abortion. The trouble for Jane Doe came not from the state court process but rather when the federal government, which was holding her in immigration detention, refused to honor the state judge’s order.”
