Abortion in Guam

Last updated

Abortion in Guam is legal under territorial law, but the absence of abortion providers in the territory means that it is effectively impossible to receive abortion services.

Contents

History

Early history

Abortion, also known as pokká, was first documented in Guam in the 1750s. Chamorro women sought suicide, sterilization, or abortion as they did not wish to birth a child into the "subjugation of the Spaniards". [1] Early methods utilized by Chamorro women to self-induce abortion included consuming drinks made from tree trunks, roots, and leaves. [1]

20th century

There were no clinics or doctors providing abortion services during much of the 1990s. During this time, women who sought abortion services often traveled to the Philippines to get an abortion, though abortion was and continues to be illegal in the country. [2] In 1990, the Legislature of Guam enacted a law prohibiting abortion in all cases except when there was "substantial risk" to the woman's life or continuing the pregnancy would "gravely impair" her health. [3] [2]

This law was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and struck down by the ninth circuit court of Guam in a case called Guam Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists v. Ada in 1997. [3] [4] [5] Future governor Lou Leon Guerrero, then serving as president of the Guam Nurses Association, testified in opposition to the ban. [6]

21st century

From the 2000s to 2016, there were two doctors in Guam who provided abortion services: Dr. Edmund Griley at Guam PolyClinic, and Dr. William Freeman, who worked at the Women's Clinic. Griley's retirement in November 2016 left Freeman as the sole abortion provider in the territory, with Freeman ultimately retiring in his own right in June 2018. Pacific Daily News reported that Freeman's successor at the Women's Clinic, Dr. Jeffrey Gabel, is personally opposed to abortion and refuses to provide abortion services. [2]

With abortion illegal in the nearby Philippines and not possible to receive in the neighboring Northern Mariana Islands, women in Guam seeking abortion care reportedly can pay out-of-pocket to travel to Hawaii or Japan for such services. [2] It was estimated in 2021 by The Guardian that the cost of the eight hour flight to Hawaii for individuals seeking abortion care amounted to around $1,000. [7]

Elected in the 2010 gubernatorial election, Republican governor Eddie Baza Calvo signed pro-life legislation into law during his tenure. [8] In 2012, the Woman's Reproductive Health Information Act was implemented, creating new restrictions for abortion provision, including a 13-week gestational age limit, a physician-only requirement, and a 24-hour mandatory waiting period. [9] [10] Following an ACLU lawsuit, the legislation was blocked by Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, Chief Judge of the District Court of Guam, in a 2021 ruling. [11] However, the law was reinstated in 2023 in a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022.

Elected governor in the 2018 election, Lou Leon Guerrero, a Democrat, has advocated in favor of abortion rights in Guam. In office, Guerrero has publicly supported the recruitment of an abortion provider to Guam. [12] In 2022, Guerrero vetoed legislation passed by the Legislature of Guam that aimed to restrict abortion rights. [13]

Access to services

Guam Memorial Hospital does not openly provide abortions and refused to refer women with life-threatening conditions to other medical facilities for abortions. Guam Regional Medical City also does not have any doctors willing to openly provide abortions and they did not provide referrals to doctors who provided them. The Department of Public Health and Social Services also refuses to provide abortion referrals. [2]

Telemedicine prescription of abortion pills

Doctors licensed to practice in Guam but resident elsewhere may prescribe abortion pills to Guam residents via telemedicine. As of August 2023, two doctors in Hawaii have done so. [14] In practice, this limits abortions in the territory to 11 weeks. [15] However, on August 1, 2023, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law that women must consult a doctor in-person. The court reasoned that a doctor on Guam who did not perform abortions could refer women to one of the Hawaiian doctors who provided telemedical care. It was not known at the time if there would be Guamanian doctors willing to do so. [16]

Statistics

In 2017, 239 abortions were performed, and 97% of these abortions utilized surgical intervention, such as dilation and curettage or intrauterine saline infusion. All but three abortions were performed at Women's Clinic. [17] As legal abortion is no longer readily available in Guam, [2] the current rate of abortion is not known.

Abortions by Type of Procedure (number of cases) [17]
Method of Abortion201720162015
Uterine curettage or evacuation 219279259
Intrauterine Saline Solution Infusion1383
Medication-induced311
Feticidal injection400
Not reported010
Total Number of Cases239289263

Anti-abortion and abortion rights movements

The Catholic Church in Guam is active in support of restrictions on abortion through participation in the Rally for Life march. [2] In 1990, Archbishop Anthony Apuron, then the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Agaña in Guam, threatened to excommunicate members of the Legislature of Guam who opposed banning abortion in the territory. [18]

Related Research Articles

An abortion clinic or abortion provider is a medical facility that provides abortions. Such clinics may be public medical centers, private medical practices or nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

Governments sometimes take measures designed to afford legal protection of access to abortion. Such legislation often seeks to guard facilities which provide induced abortion against obstruction, vandalism, picketing, and other actions, or to protect patients and employees of such facilities from threats and harassment.

This is a timeline of reproductive rights legislation, a chronological list of laws and legal decisions affecting human reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health. These rights may include some or all of the following: the right to legal or safe abortion, the right to birth control, the right to access quality reproductive healthcare, and the right to education and access in order to make reproductive choices free from coercion, discrimination, and violence. Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive education about contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and freedom from coerced sterilization, abortion, and contraception, and protection from practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abortion law in the United States by state</span>

The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly, depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction, although there is no uniform federal law. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions; others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while some allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.

Abortion in Oklahoma is illegal unless the abortion is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.

Abortion in Texas is illegal in most cases. There are nominally exceptions to save the mother's life, or prevent "substantial impairment of major bodily function", but the law on abortion in Texas is written in such an ambiguous way that life-threatening or harmful pregnancies do not explicitly constitute an exception. Attempts to clarify and codify these exceptions into law have been rejected by Republican lawmakers in Texas.

Abortion in Alabama is illegal. Historically, Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. However, Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.

Abortion in Louisiana is illegal as of August 1, 2022.

Abortion in Hawaii is legal. 66% of adults in Hawaii said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Hawaii began allowing abortion care de jure in 1970, the first state to do so. State law enacted at that time stated said, "the State shall not deny or interfere with a female's right to choose or obtain an abortion of a nonviable fetus or an abortion that is necessary to protect the life or health of the female."

Abortion in Kansas is legal. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 20 weeks post-fertilization. After that point, only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed, with this limit set on the belief that a fetus can feel pain after that point in the pregnancy. In July 2024, the Kansas Supreme Court struck down two abortion restrictions.

Abortion in Nevada is legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy, under the Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 442, section 250; and after 24 weeks if the pregnancy could be fatal for the pregnant individual. 62% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal while 34% said it should by illegal in all or most cases. Legislation by 2007 required informed consent. Attempts were successfully made to pass abortion legislation in May 2019, being pushed through a largely Democratic controlled state legislature. The number of abortion clinics in Nevada has declined over the years, with 25 in 1982, seventeen in 1992 and thirteen in 2014. There were 8,132 legal abortions in 2014, and 7,116 in 2015. Due to the high level of support for abortion rights in the state, continued access to abortion is supported by all parties, including the Republicans.

Abortion in New York is legal, although abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy require a physician's approval. Abortion was legalized up to the 24th week of pregnancy in New York in 1970, three years before it was legalized for the entire United States with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Roe v. Wade was later overturned in 2022 by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The Reproductive Health Act, passed in 2019 in New York, further allows abortions past the 24th week of pregnancy if a pregnant individual's life or health is at risk, or if the fetus is not viable. However, since these exceptions are not defined by the law, and the law carries no criminal penalties for the pregnant individual, abortion is effectively legal throughout pregnancy.

As of July 1, 2023, abortion in North Carolina is currently illegal after 12 weeks of pregnancy. In the case of rape or incest, abortion is legal through the 20th week of pregnancy. In the case of a "life-limiting" fetal abnormality, abortion is legal through the 24th week of pregnancy. If the woman's life is determined by a qualified physician to be at risk, abortion is legal at any stage of pregnancy. North Carolina is destination for many out-of-state women seeking abortions, as most US Southern states have implemented laws banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy or near-total prohibitions on abortion.

Abortion in North Dakota is technically legal, but with no current providers. The state's sole abortion clinic, the Red River Women's Clinic, relocated to Minnesota.

Abortion in Rhode Island is legal. On June 19, 2019, the legal right to abortion was codified into Rhode Island law by passage of the Reproductive Privacy Act.

Abortion in South Dakota is illegal. Anyone who induces an abortion is guilty of a Class 6 felony. An exception is included to "preserve the life of the pregnant female," given appropriate and reasonable medical judgment.

Abortion in Maryland is legal at all stages of pregnancy. The first laws regulating abortion in the state were passed in 1867 and 1868, banning abortion except by a physician to "secure the safety of the mother." Abortion providers continued to operate both within and outside of the law. Legal enforcement became more strict from the 1940s through 60s, with numerous police raids on abortion providers. In 1968, Maryland passed a liberalized abortion law that clarified the wording of the previous law, allowing abortion in hospital settings in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or when life and health were endangered.

Abortion in Florida is generally illegal after six weeks from the woman's last menstrual period, when many women do not yet know they are pregnant. This law came into effect in May 2024, being approved by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis following its passage in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate, with only Republican state legislators supporting and only Democratic state legislators opposing. Additionally, pregnant women are generally required to make two visits to a medical facility 24 hours apart to be able to obtain an abortion, in a law approved by Republican Governor Rick Scott in 2015.

Abortion in Wyoming is currently legal due to a temporary court injunction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on abortion in the United States</span> Impact of COVID-19

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-abortion government officials in several American states enacted or attempted to enact restrictions on abortion, characterizing it as a non-essential procedure that can be suspended during the medical emergency. The orders have led to several legal challenges and criticism by abortion-rights groups and several national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association. Legal challenges on behalf of abortion providers, many of which are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, have successfully stopped some of the orders on a temporary basis, though bans in several states have not been challenged.

References

  1. 1 2 Rubinstein, Donald (1992). "Culture in court : notes and reflections on abortion in Guam". Journal de la Société des Océanistes. 94 (1): 35–44. doi:10.3406/jso.1992.2605.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Stole Weiss, Jasmine (30 June 2018). "No abortion providers on Guam". Pacific Daily News. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  3. 1 2 Arndorfer, Elizabeth; Michael, Jodi; Moskowitz, Laura; Grant, Juli A.; Siebel, Liza (December 1998). A State-By-State Review of Abortion and Reproductive Rights. DIANE Publishing. ISBN   9780788174810.
  4. ↑ Lewin, Tamar (1990-03-21). "Guam's Abortion Law Tested By A.C.L.U. Lawyer's Speech". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  5. ↑ Lewis, Neil A.; Times, Special To the New York (1990-08-24). "Judge in Guam Rejects Strict Law on Abortion". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  6. ↑ Chen, David W.; Hayashi, Noriko (2023-06-26). "In Isolated Guam, Abortion Is Legal. And Nearly Impossible to Get". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  7. ↑ Dyke, Michelle Broder Van (2021-02-22). "Getting an abortion on Guam requires a $1,000, eight-hour flight. A lawsuit could change that". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  8. ↑ "Governor Signs 2 Abortion Related Bills Into Law". PNC News First. 2013-11-26. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  9. ↑ "Guam Legal Code" (PDF).
  10. ↑ Center, Pacific News (2014-03-31). "DPHSS: Enforcement of "The Women's Reproductive Health Information Act " Will Begin June 2". PNC News First. Archived from the original on 2021-03-03. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  11. ↑ "Our View: Judge's ruling reinforced a woman's right to choose". guampdn.com. 2021-09-09. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  12. ↑ Walker, Lannie (2019-08-19). "Inquiry into Guam abortion doctor continues". The Guam Daily Post. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
  13. ↑ Admin (2022-12-28). "Guam governor vetoes anti-abortion bill". Pacific Island Times. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  14. ↑ Chen, David (June 26, 2023). "In Isolated Guam, Abortion Is Legal. And Nearly Impossible to Get". The New York Times. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  15. ↑ "The Abortion Pill | Get the Facts About Medication Abortion". Planned Parenthood. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  16. ↑ Chen, David W. (2023-08-02). "Federal Appeals Court Further Limits Abortion Access on Guam". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-12-24.
  17. 1 2 "Guam 2018 Statistical Yearbook | Statistics for Development Division". sdd.spc.int. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  18. ↑ Hofschneider, Anita (2022-12-22). "The Fight Over Abortion Access In Guam Has Broad Implications For Women In The Pacific". Honolulu Civil Beat. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.