'Pro-life' group uses Roe v. Wade to defend teen's 'choice' against abortion

An anti-abortion group is using the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision -- a ruling that the group vehemently disagrees with -- to argue that a Texas teen cannot be forced by her parents to get an abortion because the law gives her a "choice."

Lawyers with the Texas Center for Defense of Life said that they had asked Harris County, Texas district court to grant a temporary restraining order on behalf of a 16-year-old girl who is nine weeks pregnant.

"We were asking judge to stop them physically forcing her to have an abortion," attorney Stephen Casey told KPRC. "She is legally protected. So, they cannot drag her to an abortion clinic and force an abortion on our client."

The teen girl, who was not identified by name, alleged that her mother "invited the paternal grandparents to a bar for further discussion, where she suggested that she might slip her an abortion pill through deception," according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also said that the girl's father told her that "he was going to take her to have an abortion and that the decision was his, end of story."

Casey, however, contended that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision protecting a woman's decision to have an abortion also gave her the "choice" not to have one.

"What Roe established is minors have the choice," Casey said. "And when they do make the choice, folks are shocked that they want to carry the baby."

A Texas judge has granted a temporary restraining order, and an injunction hearing with plaintiffs and defendants has been schedule for Friday.

The Texas Center for Defense of Life was incorporated as a non-profit in Jan. 2011 "to coincide with the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws barring abortion in America."

“The Roe v. Wade case originated in Texas; perhaps a case to reverse Roe and its progeny will likewise begin right here in Texas," Casey and co-founder Greg Terra noted in a press release at the time.

Roe v. Wade states: "This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent."

Watch this video from KPRC, broadcast Feb. 12, 2013.