government and what happens to the health care in that situation? federal government takes on responsibility for providing it, yes? yes. that s a legal requirement that the federal government provide access to medical care for this population without question. abortion is singled out for unique treatment and we have seen that the trump administration has a policy of trying to coerce young women to carry the pregnancies to term and if that fails, that bloii t them. they have the key to the shelter they re staying and prohibit the shelter from allowing the young women to be transported for the purposes of obtaining an abortion or abortion counseling. what s the difference of how the federal government handling this for girls under 18 opposed to women over the age of 18? that s another bizarre part of the story is the federal government for adults in i.c.e.
recently, they were trying to get the office to explain their reasoning behind their continued efforts to block these young women from accessing legal abortions. well, today the aclu got the government to release an extraordinary memo from scott lloyd, the trump appointee anti-abortion activist in charge of the office of refugee resettlement, appears to have made it a personal crusade. in a current case involving a teenage girl who s pregnant he was trying to block from getting a boern abortion, scott lloyd describes the pregnancy as a result of a relationship in the home country before accessing the united states and says on behalf of the government of the united states he wants to compel this girl, he still wants to force this girl against her will to bare her rapist s child.
the pregnancies. is it your sense that part of the strategy and one particular crusading appointee to stretch out legal fights over the young women so that their pregnancy gets goes further along in time so that they legally can t obtain an abortion anywhere? the legal fight and before coming to our attention, dragging their feet, not making a decision, delaying their abortion for weeks before maybe we even hear about it and only way we heard about the two young women is through anonymous tips. we don t know how many other young women out there who need abortion and we don t know how long that the government is pushing them further into their pregnancies making them remain pregnant against their will day after day until we are able to go to court and intervene. even in this case when they acknowledge that the pregnancy is result of a rape and want to force the young woman to do this against her will anyway. remarkable case study and
quote, abortion does not cure the reality that she is the victim of an assault. quote, it is possible and perhaps likely that the young woman would experience an abortion as an additional trauma on top of the trauma experiences as a result of the sexual assault and cites a website for a catholic ministry against abortion. his memo continues, quote, to decline to assist an abortion is to decline to participate in violence against an innocent life. and although he says he disagrees with the notion that his office is forcing this woman to carry her pregnancy to term, he says, quote, i m convinced assisting with an abortion in this case is not in her best interest. right. despite what she says. he ends the memo saying we have to choose and we ought to proz chooz to protect life than to destroy it. from the director of a government agency. federal government agency. here in this country. in 2017. where abortion is legal and has been legal for decades.
you might remember a story we covered in october about a pregnant 17-year-old girl living in shelter run by the federal government in texas. pregnant, wanted an abortion even though she s legally entitled to do that at her own discretion, a trump administration official blocked her from leaving the facility in order to get a legal abortion. eventually the aclu stepped in ato cert that young woman s rights and a federal appeals court judge let that 17-year-old get the abortion she wanted. now, the federal agency, the federal official that s tried to block these young women from obtaining legal abortions, office of refugee resettlement which is part of health and human services. this agency and the man that heads it are still on the crusade against immigrant teenage girl that is want abortions and the aclu continued their side of the fight.