Shakespearean woe abounds. This child has been in the government system since she was 5, her mother died in January and her father is in prison. Because of a skillful propensity to run away, she resides at the youth correctional facility. In the chief judge's press release of revelations to seal the case record, we learn she used drugs during her pregnancy. The village failed miserably with this child.
Hard cases make bad law, but arrogant judges, social workers and guardian ad litems make worse.
The law required bending because the teen fled after a statutorily-timely abortion order was entered. Those supervising delinquents should have some semblance of common sense. The guardian at litem, the judge and case workers pursued a goal of skirting Arizona law and defying the will of the people on the issues of abortion and state funds. Ignoring the horrific emotional aspects of the case and the underlying moral issue, they placed state employees in the untenable position of a choice between compliance with Arizona law or compliance with a court order. Wisely, some employee somewhere in the government systems, understood the fickle nature of the imperial judiciary and saw the state in an indefensible liability position in the event anything miscued in the transport or abortion.