WASHINGTON – Colorado U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette is calling on leadership of the House Judiciary Committee to subpoena Department of Health and Human Services officials who denied a 17-year-old rape victim from Mexico a right to have an abortion.

The girl was an illegal immigrant being held in federal custody in Texas. The Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the care of illegal immigrant teenagers in federal facilities, rejected her request to be able to obtain an abortion.

DeGette, D-Denver, made her appeal – which drew strong opposition from anti-abortion activists – in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee.

“Aside from being unconstitutional, the ongoing efforts by [Office of Refugee Resettlement] staff to intimidate and scare young women out of exercising their rights are also offensive and highly inappropriate for any government official, let alone senior officials in the Trump Administration,” said the letter that was co-signed by fellow Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus member Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.

The girl was identified as “Jane Poe” in court filings by her attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union. A federal court in Washington, D.C. granted her plea.

Nevertheless, DeGette and Slaughter said the case raised serious legal concerns that did not end when the girl had the abortion on Dec. 20.

“According to these court filings, the Trump Administration attempted to force a rape victim to carry a pregnancy to term against her will,” DeGette and Slaughter wrote to the Judiciary Committee. “This is an egregious, unconscionable violation of Jane Poe’s right to make this decision. We fear that other women currently in detention may be facing similar injustices at the hands of Trump Administration officials.”

DeGette’s pro-choice support of the teenaged girl drew a sharp response from the anti-abortion group Colorado Right to Life.

“Diana DeGette is, as she has always been, acting upon ‘to thine own self be true,'” Susan Sutherland, director of Colorado Right to Life, told Colorado Politics. “She is now and has always been an evil person, devoid of God and any godly moral wisdom. Of course she wants to have the innocent, unborn human murdered. There is no ‘right’ to murder the innocent. As the pro-aborts always say to the anti-abortion folks, why doesn’t she mind her own business?”

Despite the criticism, DeGette wants Scott Lloyd, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, to be subpoenaed for questioning when Congress returns from its Christmas recess next week.

Lloyd explained his position toward the 17-year-old girl in a memo that was released last week. He said both rape and abortion are “violence” in a statement disclosed in court filings by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“I am mindful that abortion is offered by some as a solution to a rape,” Lloyd’s memo states.

However, the memo added that “implicit here are the dubious notions that it is possible to cure violence with further violence, and that the destruction of an unborn child’s life can in some instances be acceptable as a means to an end.

“To decline to assist in an abortion here is to decline to participate in violence against an innocent life,” Lloyd wrote.

The memo also said no federal law creates a requirement to assist anyone in a government shelter to have an abortion. The Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters thousands of illegal immigrant minors.

In a previous e-mail disclosed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lloyd said he could arrange for a “few good families” to meet with a pregnant teen to “see her through her pregnancy.”

The pro-choice group Planned Parenthood is calling for Lloyd to be fired. A statement from the group says Lloyd is “imposing his personal beliefs on the young women in his agency’s care.”

NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado executive director Karen Middleton also was critical.

“Let’s be frank about what is happening here – a woman is being forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her will because of the personal beliefs of a government bureaucrat,” she said. “A political appointee’s personal anti-choice extremism does not, and must not, trump the Constitutional right to choose an abortion by an undocumented immigrant. This interference by Scott Lloyd and the Trump Administration needs to stop, and it needs to stop now, because the Trump Administration has made it clear it will not end with Jane Poe.”

DeGette’s letter to the Judiciary Committee coincides with a debate in Congress over whether new health insurance provisions in the annual budget headed for a vote next month should include coverage for abortion.

The Senate approved a short-term spending measure last week to keep the government operating until January 19. It extended Obamacare provisions that offer health insurance to women seeking abortions and birth control.

However, Republican proposals for the new budget include the Hyde Amendment. It bans states from using any federal money on abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life.

(Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a remark from Karen Middleton.)