Today it was reported that “Jane Doe,” an immigrant teen in federal custody, does not want an abortion and says she was forced to sign a form requesting representation by pro-abortion attorneys.
A court filing details how Doe wrote and signed two statements attesting to being coerced to request representation by Rochelle Garza and Myles Garza, who have represented other immigrant teens in recent abortion cases. The brief also states that Doe does not want an abortion.
The national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) released the following statement in response:
“Abortion advocates are taking shameless advantage of teenage girls in the vulnerable position of being in a foreign country, far from home and from loved ones, to push a harmful agenda of making the U.S. a sanctuary nation for abortion,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Now one teen has pushed back, bravely choosing life and rejecting being manipulated as a political pawn. HHS should continue taking a strong stand for the best interests of both the young mothers and unborn children in their care and protect them from such pressure. Pro-abortion lawyers cannot be trusted to do so.”
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Chuck Donovan, president of SBA List’s research arm the Charlotte Lozier Institute, noted the similarity to the cases of the late Norma McCorvey and Sandra Cano, the plaintiffs of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, who became staunch pro-life advocates working to overturn those rulings and told of their exploitation at the hands of zealous lawyers pushing to set a precedent:
“For months the American Civil Liberties Union and others have been suing the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement in an attempt to create a new foreign policy of abortion facilitation for refugees – in this case, minor girls – who reach our shores. Now it appears they have gone further, and for the sake of their ideology persuaded a teenage émigré to sign legal papers to obtain an abortion she does not, in fact, want. There is a perfect irony in this, because the regime of Roe v. Wade on which the radical left has staked its absolute claims regarding abortion rested on legal actions by two women who were likewise induced to sign papers, never had abortions, and later championed the right to life.”