Two migrants in US win permission to have abortions

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Columbia: Two young undocumented migrant women have won a court battle to be able to have abortions in the United States.

The conclusion came Tuesday evening as the Justice Department said it would refrain from appealing a ruling that gave the women permission to end their pregnancies. That decision came Monday from US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington DC.

But the broader legal battle is not over, said the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes government policy in these circumstances.

When pregnant minors enter the country illegally, US authorities give them a choice: agree to be deported and have an abortion in their home country, or stay in America and have the baby. 

The ACLU argues that forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term violates a constitutionally protected right to privacy.

In this latest case, the women were initially presented as being 17 years old.

But authorities concluded that one of them was actually 19, although she denied it, and freed her as the case worked its way through the legal system.

The other woman, who is 22 weeks pregnant, can now have an abortion since the government is not filing an appeal, but she remains in a migration holding facility.

A few weeks ago, a similar case involving a pregnant teen detained in Texas emerged as the first big legal test involving abortion for the administration of President Donald Trump.

The conservative-leaning Supreme Court is seen as all but certain to have to step in at some point to rule on cases like these.