PUBLIC LAW 20-134 IS REPEALED

By Tim Rohr

It never fails to amaze me, with every election, how the abortion question makes candidates suddenly stupid. They fumble around between "I'm personally pro-life, but..." to "better healthcare for women..." etc., etc., etc. 

Note to candidates. Here's how to answer any question about your position on abortion:

Do you have legislation in mind? If so, I would not be able to tell you my position until I see the legislation, because even if I am pro-life, I would not support a pro-life bill if it were unconstitutional on its face. Such a bill could be very costly to the people of Guam, and in the end, not only do nothing to protect the unborn, but it could endanger the unborn even further.

You can stop here, but if you are so inclined to give a history lesson, I provide the following; 

Case in point: As history has shown, and is still showing, 36 years after it was enacted, the people of Guam are still paying the legal bills for Public Law 20-13. And, as history has also shown, because of the legal mess that followed the law's enactment, the abortion industry in Guam ran rampant and unregulated for the next 30 years* because no legislator in Guam dared to touch the issue.

So show me your legislation, and after I review it, I'll give you my position on your bill. 

*P.L. 20-134 was enacted in 1990. No attempt was made to legislatively regulate abortion until 2008, when The Esperansa Project backed a ban on partial-birth abortion.  Given the 600 abortions annually, estimated by the bill's author, the late Senator Elizabeth Arriola, we can estimate that, in those 28 years, 16,800 children in the womb were aborted. The Esperansa Project backed several more pro-life measures over the next 8 years, 8 of which became law. In 2018, the last abortion clinic closed its doors, and no doctor in Guam is willing to do them. The only abortions occurring in Guam are chemical abortions, and Lou and Jayne had to recruit two doctors from Hawaii to get licensed in Guam to "do" them via "telemedicine" and mail order baby-killer pills.

But back to the abortion question making candidates stupid. Imagine being asked if you, a candidate for political office, favor raising the speed limit on Route 1, given that most drivers exceed it anyway, and you answer: "I personally support the current speed limit, but it's not my place to tell people what to do with their cars." Stupid stuff like that. Apply it to just about every other question, and answering "I personally ...anything" sounds like absolute idiocy, because it is. 

Now, regarding P.L. 20-134, "Belle's Law." The real problem with the law wasn't that it was unconstitutional, even if it was. Legislation that challenges judicial precedent, even on constitutional matters, is how the laws develop. This is exactly how Roe v Wade became the law of the land, and it is also how Dobbs v Jackson overturned it. 

In 1989, given the recent judicial precedent in Webster v Reproductive Health Services, Arriola believed there was an opening to constitutionally challenge Roe (as Webster had done). (Read more about that here.)

The legislation went off the rails when it was co-opted by then-Governor Joseph Ada and then-Archbishop Anthony Apuron as a platform to advance Chamorro self-determination.

As Vivian Dames observed:

"Once the governor resolved to defend Guam’s ban on abortion against a common foe of Chamorro self-determination, namely, the U.S. Constitution, then the politics of abortion and the commonwealth quest became irrevocably entangled."  - Vivian Loyola Dames in Asian/Pacific Women, A Historical Anthology (2003) edited by Shirley Hune, Gail M. Nomura, Pg. 366

Apuron then jumped on the self-determination bandwagon:

"If you do not know anything about Chamorros and about our struggles, you will miss the point about our decision to protect life…We are proposing a simple idea. We choose to exercise self-determination in the moral imperative even as we pursue self-determination in the political arena." - Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron, Ibid, Pg. 365.

Apuron then went further, threatening to excommunicate any senator who did not vote for the bill. At this point, it appears the lawmakers threw up their hands and said, "What the hell," and passed it. They knew the bill was unconstitutional and that the law would be enjoined the minute it was enacted. So why not just vote for it, avoid being labeled as a heretic, and the shame of public excommunication, and let the bill die on its own? 

They were right. The pro-aborts immediately filed a lawsuit, and the District Court enjoined the law. Ada et al. pursued the matter all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case, leaving the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in place:

"Guam contends that the substantive due process guarantee enforced in Roe v. Wade and subsequent abortion cases does not apply to Guam because nothing in Guam's Organic Act, codified at 48 U.S.C. § 1421-1424b (1988), so provides...We can scarcely imagine, however, any clearer indication of intent than the language of the Mink Amendment: the relevant constitutional amendments "have the same force and effect" in Guam as in a state of the United States. There is no need, therefore, to go further...Accordingly, we hold that Roe v. Wade applies to Guam as it applies to the states." - Guam Society of Obstetricians & Gynecologists v. Ada, 962 F.2d 1366, 1370 (9th Cir. 1992) 

The late Senator Ben Pangelinan, during an argument in 2010 over The Esperansa Project-backed legislation requiring informed consent for abortion, estimated the cost to Guam taxpayers for Belle's Law to be several million dollars. Recently, that amount has increased as the current Attorney General has sought to remove the 1990 injunction on P.L. 20-134 on the basis that the Dobbs decision has eliminated Roe, which was the basis for the injunction. 

AG Moylan's job is to enforce the laws of Guam, and, amazingly, P.L. 20-134 remains in the Guam Code, albeit enjoined. Whether Moylan is pro-life or not is not the issue. The law exists, and despite the ridiculous "declaratory judgment" (2023) declaring it "repealed by implication," it is still on the books.

Once again, this is a demonstration of how the abortion issue makes politicians stupid. There is no need to be fighting over this law nearly 40 years later and spending so much money on it. All that needs to happen to end this insanity is for a single lawmaker to introduce a one-sentence bill that reads: "Public Law 20-134 is repealed." And then, if that senator or any senator wants to do the right thing, he or she can introduce a cleaned-up version of Belle's Law, which, in the light of Dobbs, would not have the constitutional challenges from 1990. 

But apparently no one, for forty years, has been smart enough to do it. Either that, or they're scared to do it. Meanwhile, we pay and pay and pay.