A pregnant Texas 16-year-old has gone to court to avoid having an abortion against her will, according to court documents.
Lawyers with the Texas Center for Defense of Life, a pro-life advocacy group, filed a petition on behalf of the teen plaintiff identified only by her initials in Harris County, Texas district court on Feb. 10. A judge granted a temporary restraining order in the case, according to local NBC affiliate
We were asking the judge to stop them physically forcing her to have an abortion, the plaintiffs attorney Stephen Casey told Click2Houston.com. They cannot drag her to get an abortion, force an abortion on our client.
The eight-page petition alleges that the plaintiffs parents, identified as Jeffrey Koen and Denise Watts Koen, attempted to force their daughter to act against her will by coercing her to have an abortion with both verbal and physical threats and harassment.
The pregnant young woman has lived with her grandparents for the past seven months, the court document states, and is nine weeks pregnant.
After the plaintiff informed her parents that she was pregnant, her mother pushed for the termination of the pregnancy, according to the petition. The plaintiffs father said that the plaintiffs only option was for her to have an abortion, the document states.
The plaintiffs mother invited the paternal grandparents to a bar for further discussion, where she suggested that she might slip R.E.K. an abortion pill through deception, according to the petition.
Lawyers argue that the teen has the right to choose to keep her baby under Roe v. Wade, the Supreme court case that legalized abortion.
