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The story of a pregnant teenager, an illegal alien, has captured attention as the American Civil Liberties Union and abortion industry argue the United States should open its doors to all seeking abortion. Naturally, they believe that U.S. taxpayers ultimately should pay for it.
At issue is whether the United States will expand its mission to ending the lives of preborn infants for all those who travel here illegally, whether the United States should become the home base of International Abortion Inc.
The Central American teen illegally entered the United States through Texas, where state officials placed her in a private facility contracted by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to reports, the girl said she sought an abortion because she was worried her parents might abuse her if they found out she was pregnant.
Because Texas law requires either parental or judicial signoff for an underage girl seeking an abortion, attorneys intervened to get a judge’s permission. However, Texas officials refused to allow the girl to be taken from state care to an abortion facility. Instead, they arranged for the young girl to talk with pregnancy care center volunteers to let her know her options were more than the death of her unborn child.
Do Foreigners Have a Right to U.S. Abortions?
Courageously, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton weighed in on the case in an amicus brief, noting “(n)o federal court has ever declared that unlawfully-present aliens with no substantial ties to this country have a constitutional right to abortion on demand. The Court should decline to break that new ground.”
The establishment of some of universal right to abortion would add a whole new income stream for the abortion industry and new taxpayer burden, even before we consider the morality of becoming a destination for worldwide abortion. Attorneys general of Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Carolina joined Paxton in opposing this unprecedented expansion of abortion.
Lost in this conflict is a discussion of how best to help this young girl. A real person behind the headlines needs care and guidance, not abortion. It’s a tragedy that the abortion industry will use this young girl to try and create a “safe haven” for abortion in the United States rather than trying to empower her future and the future of her unborn child.
The ACLU is not only seizing on this opportunity to push for expanded abortion access, it also wants to add the girl to a current lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, even though they are not the caretakers for the teenager. Faith-based organizations are, however, on the forefront of care for immigrants.
Rather than embracing this long-term partnership between people of faith and immigrants in need, the ACLU wants to strip organizations like the Catholic bishops of federal funding for refugee and immigrant aid because they refuse to allow refugees and immigrants in their care to procure abortions due to church teaching on abortion. It is of course this respect for the dignity of human life that informs both the church’s role in resettling refugees and immigrants and its role in opposing abortion.
The Ultimate Goal: An International Jane Roe
Fundamentally, the ACLU and the lucrative abortion industry want to turn this teenager into an international Jane Roe, to create new court-mandated Roe v. Wade of sorts, requiring that U.S. taxpayers and governments facilitate the abortions of all who happen to be in the United States
Now, the billion-dollar abortion industry could donate their “services” or fundraise to pay for international abortions. Instead, their consistent push is to “show them the money.” While they are fundraising from this case, claiming some monies will go to the girl, in fact, a so-called “right” to abortion for illegal aliens will result in major bills for U.S. taxpayers on behalf of non-citizens. As Paxton wrote in his brief: “Granting Plaintiffs’ motion for a TRO and preliminary injunction would create a right to abortion for anyone on Earth who entered the United States illegally, no matter how briefly. And with that right, countless others undoubtedly would follow.”
There are many great reasons to immigrate to the United States, but abortion should not be one of them. Shame on the ACLU and abortion industry for putting the future of a teenager in a virtual tug-of-war in court as a ploy to get their hands on even more money.