ABORTION AND ELECTION 2016

Dear Friends,

One of the casualties of the immense time commitment involved with bringing truth and justice to the Archdiocese of Agana has been our efforts to continue to do all that we can legislatively, politically, and personally to slow the daily slaughter of the unborn on our supposedly Catholic island. 

Abortions in Guam, 2015

Under Apuron, Guam became an abortion mecca, primarily due to absolutely NO effort to support legislation to regulate and limit abortion as many states had been doing. 

These regulations include: 

• Gestational Limits: (43 states),
• A ban on “Partial-Birth” Abortion (19 states)
• Limits on Public Funding of abortion (17 states)
• Restriction on coverage for abortions by Private Insurance (11 states)
• Allowing individual health care providers to Refuse to participate in abortion (45 states)
• State-Mandated Counseling (17 states)
• Waiting Periods (27 states), and 
• Parental Involvement (37 states)

In 2008, Chuck White and I founded The Esperansa Project to 1) raise awareness about Guam's shameful abortion culture, and 2) advance legislation to limit abortion as many states were doing. 

Our main impetus in commencing this project was the comparison of Guam's laws regulating abortion to a 2008 study published by American United for Life ranking each state by the number of protections it had advance to protect the unborn and their mothers. Guam was DEAD LAST. 

At the time, Guam had only two laws addressing abortion: 1) that the abortion be performed by a physician in a licensed facility, and 2) that the abortion be reported. And, per our Freedom of Information Act request in 2008, we discovered that the reporting requirement had been mostly ignored for several years. 

We found it ironic that Apuron had spent years devoting church resources to legislatively fighting gambling but had, since his infamous failed attempt in 1990*, had done NOTHING similar to limit abortion. 

(*In 1990, Apuron threatened to excommunicate any senator who voted against a bill banning abortion in Guam. The bill was doomed from the outset because it violated Roe v Wade. Mostly because of Apuron's irresponsible threat [it made him look powerful] the bill passed and was immediately challenged in court where it cost the Government of Guam nearly a million dollars and paralyzed any effort to address abortion legislatively for the next two decades.)

After several years of some extremely costly and intense battles, The Esperansa Project succeeded in seeing enacted into law: 

• a ban on partial-birth abortion, 
• a parental involvement requirement for minors, 
• a requirement for informed consent including a waiting period, 
• a law requiring normal medical care for children who survive a failed abortion,  
• a gestational age reporting requirement 
• an unborn victims of violence act wherein the unborn child is identified as a human person, and
• currently we are supporting a bill which would tighten and enforce the abortion reporting requirement. 

Much of Esperansa's success has been due to our campaign during the last several elections to find out exactly where candidates stood on the abortion issue and then publishing those results along with a voting guide. Sad to say, that due to another very intense and costly war (thank you Apuron) Chuck and I are not able to do that this year. 

However, there is nothing keeping you from doing it yourself.

First, understand that it is ABSOLUTELY USELESS to ask candidates if they are pro-life. They will all say yes, even the ones that have fought tooth and nail against us in something so simple as providing normal medical care for a child who survives a failed abortion. (Voting record here. More history here.)

Many politicians "personally believe" one way but vote another. We don't care what a politician "believes." We only care about what he or she will DO!

The best way to find that out is to present the candidate with proposed legislation and ask how he or she will vote on it. To that end, we recommend that you present them a copy of Bill 51-31. This bill was introduced and subsequently died in the 31st Guam Legislature. The bill proposes a ban on abortion after TWENTY weeks gestation and we want it to be reintroduced in the next legislature. (In fact, ask your candidates if they would introduce it.)

This is the PAIN-CAPABLE ban on abortion which FOURTEEN states have already enacted into law. We want to see Guam join that list. At twenty weeks, abortion most often occurs either through burning the child to death in a saline solution and then inducing labor, or tearing the child apart piece by piece.

Don't expect the church which used our pulpits and our money to fight casinos to help you fight abortion. We'll have to do that ourselves. But by now, we are used to that, aren't we. 

This post has provided all the information and links to information that you need to be a pro-life warrior this election. Just download and make copies of the bill and contact the candidates. If you need their contact information, contact the Guam Election Commission. 

Democrats

Sen. Tom Ada

Jermaine Alerta

Sen. Frank Aguon Jr.

Fred Bordallo

Vice Speaker Benjamin Cruz

Regine Biscoe Lee

Telena Nelson

Sen. Tina Muna Barnes

Sen. Rory Respicio

Sen. Dennis Rodriguez Jr.

Joe S. San Agustin

Sen. Mike San Nicolas

Therese Terlaje

Sen. Nerissa Underwood

Speaker Judith Won Pat

Republicans

Sen. Vicente "Tony" Ada

Albert J. Balajadia

Amanda Blas

Sen. Frank Blas Jr.

William Castro

Chris Duenas

Sen. James Espaldon

Fernando Esteves

Sen. Brant McCreadie

Sen. Tommy Morrison

Louise Borja Muna

Eric Palacios

Jose A. San Agustin

Benito Servino

Sen. Mary Torres

Feel free to report back here in the comments your findings. There will be a link to this post in the right side bar until the election.