Last night was the first night in a month that I was able to fall asleep without worrying about whether Jane Doe would get the medical care she needs. Jane, a 17-year-old unaccompanied immigrant minor, received her abortion yesterday after being held hostage by our federal government for over a month. But while the legal drama and Jane’s plight captured the country’s attention, her battle is part an overall war being waged by the Trump Administration against reproductive rights and immigrants’ rights.
Jane crossed the U.S. border on her own in September. She was detained and placed in a government-funded shelter where she discovered she was pregnant. She immediately asked for an abortion. But what federal officials did next is straight out of dystopian fiction.
