Stiff Abortion Limits Become Law on Guam

A bill creating the nation’s most restrictive abortion statute was signed Monday by the territorial governor. The new law was hailed by anti-abortion forces, but civil libertarians promised to fight it.

“In my heart, I believe that a fetus is a human being,” Republican Gov. Joseph Ada said in signing the bill, which prohibits abortion except when the mother’s health or life is endangered.

The law, which was passed despite a ruling by Guam’s attorney general that it is unconstitutional, makes it a third-degree felony for a person to perform or help in an abortion. Seeking or having an abortion or soliciting someone to have an abortion is a misdemeanor.

The law provides that the Nov. 6 general election ballot include a referendum in which residents of this Pacific Ocean island about 1,500 miles east of the Philippines will decide whether to retain the statute.

Guam’s 21-member unicameral Legislature unanimously approved the bill on March 8 after Archbishop Anthony Apuron threatened in an interview with a television reporter to excommunicate any Roman Catholic senator who voted against it. All but one of the senators are Catholic, as is Ada. However, most of the senators said that they had been unaware of the threat.

Territorial Atty. Gen. Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson issued an opinion on Feb. 26 holding that the bill is unconstitutional because it violates a woman’s constitutional right to privacy.

Both sides of the abortion debate agree that the new law could provide a direct challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion on privacy grounds.

The new statute cannot coexist with Roe vs. Wade, said Janet Benshoff, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

Roland Rivera, vice president of the anti-abortion Guamanians United for Life, said the law “is the ice pick that’s going to chip away at the big block of ice” that is Roe vs. Wade.

Rachael Pine, staff attorney for the Reproductive Freedom Project, said she expected immediate action.

“It will be either a lawsuit or a negotiated agreement to suspend enforcement pending outcome of a lawsuit,” Pine said in a telephone interview from her New York office.

Among those hailing the new law was the National Right to Life Committee.