Obama Admin Took Teen Girls Out of State for Secret Abortions Without Their Parents Knowing

By Micaiah Bilger, Oct 18, 2018   |   Washington, DC

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama’s administration may have skirted parental consent laws by taking teen girls out of state for secret abortions, a federal court document reveals.

Margot Cleveland, a lawyer and writer for The Federalist, found evidence of this buried in a federal court decision last week. The case involved the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the government for giving grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to shelter illegal immigrants and human trafficking victims.

The court’s ruling revealed that the Obama administration may have transported pregnant minors in federal custody to states where there are no parental consent laws for abortions.

According to Cleveland’s report:

An email exchange between two Health and Human Services employees in April 2014 exposed this disturbing fact. In discussing Maria, a pregnant minor held at a temporary shelter, possibly in Texas or Florida—the workers noted that Maria stated she wanted an abortion and did not want her parents to know that she was pregnant. At the time, Maria’s parents, who were to be her sponsors, were located in Florida. Maria was in the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

After learning Maria had requested an abortion, according to government emails, “two ORR field specialists looked into the abortion laws in both Texas and Florida and reported that the general rule in both states was that minors could not have abortions without parental consent (absent exceptions, such as obtaining a waiver from a judge).” The Texas field specialist then emailed other ORR staff members, explaining: “This is why termination of pregnancies are done in New Mexico due to the fact that currently (by law) there is no parental consent requirement.”

The court noted it is not clear if Maria had an abortion while in federal custody, but the emails suggest that other young girls did.

Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram for pro-life pictures and the latest pro-life news.

New Mexico is one of 13 states that does not have a parental involvement law. Most states require a girl under age 18 to notify or receive permission from at least one parent before aborting an unborn baby. However, abortion activists often help girls skirt these laws through judicial bypass, a provision that allows girls to ask a judge for permission instead of her parents.

It appears the Obama administration did, too — though, Cleveland pointed out, they did not have a good reason for it.

The report continues:

The location of Maria’s parents was known and nothing indicated her parents were abusive; rather, Maria merely stated she did not want her parents to know she was pregnant. Had Maria claimed her parents were abusive, a judicial bypass would allow an abortion without parental notification and consent. The only reason, then, to transport minors such as Maria to New Mexico was the one acknowledged in the email: because that state’s law did not require parental involvement.

Parental notification/parental consent laws have strong public support. Currently, 37 states require some type of parental involvement in a minor’s abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

However, Planned Parenthood, NARAL and other pro-abortion groups often lobby against parental involvement laws. They believe underage girls should be able to abort their unborn babies in a dangerous surgical or drug-induced abortion procedure without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

In 2017, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit challenging Indiana’s parental consent law. In 2013, Planned Parenthood filed a similar lawsuit in Montana to overturn its parental involvement requirements.

Abortion activists frequently help teens bypass these protective measures. In 2013, the National Right to Life Committee found in one state in a period of 4 1/2 years, there were 3,573 judicial petitions to bypass parents and only nine were denied.

According to its research:

Parents are, for the most part, not given the opportunity to consent, they are not given the opportunity to be consulted, they are totally bypassed. Their minor daughter is given a secret abortion and they are then left in the dark trying to pick up the pieces of their injured daughter’s life not knowing where to begin. The abortion industry masterfully manipulates this judicial bypass loophole by getting their own attorneys appointed by the court to shepherd pregnant minors through the intimidating judicial system and the abortion is performed before anyone can take a breath.

 

https://www.lifenews.com/2018/10/18/obama-admin-took-teen-girls-out-of-state-for-secret-abortions-without-their-parents-knowing/