We told you previously about how a Catholic Charities employee in Virginia helped an immigrant girl get an abortion. Technically the underage girl was in the legal charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement because the whereabouts of her parents is unknown.
Local Catholic Charities offices that help with refugee resettlement and who take care of minors like this Guatemalan girl are under the umbrella of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the 10 major volags contracted by the federal government to do this type of work.
The story is being widely covered but here is an update this morning from a Catholic publication:
RICHMOND, Virginia, July 9, 2008 The Attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia says he will investigate, but has no intentions of prosecuting, Commonwealth Catholic Charities of Richmond (CCR) for their involvement in procuring an illegal abortion for a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl in their care.
Only the CCR staffer who forged the consent form for the girl’s abortion will be the subject of Commonwealth Attorney Michael N. Herring’s investigation. The staffer would face a Class 3 misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine for signing a consent form without authority to do so under Virginia law.
“That’s the only possible criminal angle,” Herring told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I’m not investigating Catholic Charities. I’m looking into the execution of the consent form.”
Here is our original story from last month.