U.S. Supreme Court calls legal challenge in undocumented teenager's abortion case "moot"

[TexasTowelie]

By Emma Platoff, Texas Tribune


Seven months after an undocumented teenager under federal custody in Texas got an abortion over the objections of the state of Texas and the Trump administration, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a lower court order that cleared the way for the procedure. But the high court did not address some legal questions at the heart of the case.

The federal government complained that it had been misled about the timeline for Jane Doe’s abortion, which prevented it from appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court in time to block the procedure from happening. In a five-page order Monday, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court order allowing the abortion but said it did so because the issue had become “moot” since the teenager’s pregnancy has already been terminated.

In the early stages of the case last fall, the federal government had argued that it was not obligated to release an undocumented minor in its custody for an abortion. The high court’s order Monday did not address that question. Instead, the justices said it is their “established practice” to vacate orders when when the issues prompting them have become moot.

Somewhat unusually, the government also asked that the high court sanction Doe’s lawyers for “what appear to be material misrepresentations and omissions to the government designed to thwart this Court’s review.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who had weighed in on the case several times with friend-of-the-court briefs — called out Doe’s lawyers for “[misleading] the Department of Justice in order to carry out this heinous act against an innocent unborn life.”

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/04/us-supreme-court-rules-abortion-undocumented-teenager-texas/