PDN: Bill to restrict abortion was stalled until days after election
"Legislation to further restrict access to abortion on Guam sat idle until just days after this year’s general election.
Over a thousand people testified for and against the Guam Heartbeat Act of 2022, which would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected in the womb. The measure was unable to be debated by lawmakers and go to vote on the session floor without final approval from the Legislature’s Committee on Health — until Nov. 10, the day after the final, unofficial results for the general election were tabulated."
Bill 291-36 sat idle because the sponsors did not care to move the bill through the Legislature. Apparently they only wanted to get the credit for introducing said legislation and then ran and hid. Nothing new here.
For contrast, in 2012, and just days before the election, The Esperansa Project pushed then-Governor Eddie Calvo to call for a special session to debate a bill requiring informed consent for abortion - which had been languishing for nearly 2 years.
The session was held and it was quite a spectacle with certain lawmakers breaking into tears, leashing hell on Calvo, and attacking me personally (though not by name), NOT for the actual issue, but for actually requiring them to do their job before an election: which was to publicly take a stand.
A very smart pro-abort senator (BJ Cruz) publicly testified in favor of the bill and then later and quietly added a provision that would require the bill to go through the administrative rules process in the next legislature. Smart guy.
The bill was eventually enacted into law but not until The Esperansa Project had to fight the battle all over again and get the bill past the rules process.
BTW, the informed consent legislation is the law which is currently at issue relative to the ACLU lawsuit re "zoom abortions."
Note: As time permits, I will add links to the 2012 matter and the ACLU lawsuit later.
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