TIME TO MOVE THE DATE FOR "MARCH FOR LIFE"

By Tim Rohr

Yesterday, January 19, Guam pro-lifers held a March for Life. 

For decades, the timing of this march has approximated the date of Roe v Wade (Jan. 22, 1973) and our local march is usually in concert with the national march in Washington D.C. as well as many similar marches across the states. 

Thanks in part to this annual outpouring of public support for life in the womb, Roe was finally overturned by Dobbs (June 24, 2022).

So it's time to move on.

By continuing to march on the anniversary of Roe, pro-lifers are diminishing and even sidelining Dobbs - which was exactly what pro-lifers, for decades, had marched for.

It's time to move all marches for life to celebrate the anniversary of Dobbs so that the decision in Dobbs becomes the overwhelming drumbeat behind every abortion battle that - thanks to Dobbs - is now in the hands of every state and territory including Guam. 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the 2022 Supreme Court case that reversed Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the decisions that originally asserted the fundamental right to an abortion prior to the viability of the fetus. Dobbs v. Jackson states that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; and, the authority to regulate abortion is “returned to the people and their elected representatives.” - SOURCE

GEORGIA V. GUAM: THE BATTLE OF VOID AB INITIO

By Tim Rohr

The Supreme Court of Georgia has issued an opinion on a matter that was extremely similar to a matter that was recently before the Supreme Court of Guam.

The matter before the Georgia Court was whether or not a 2019 law which regulates abortion procedures was "void ab initio," meaning null from the beginning, because the 2019 law was enacted while Roe was still in effect.

This was the exact same question put forth by Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero for declaratory judgment by the Supreme Court of Guam:

Petitioner Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero, I Maga’hågan Guåhan (“the Governor”), filed a Request for Declaratory Judgment under 7 GCA § 4104 requesting that this court declare P.L. 20-134 void ab initio...

- In Re: Request of Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero, I Maga'Hagan Guahan, Relative to the Validity and Enforceability of Public Law No. 20-134, 2023 Guam 11, CRQ23-001, October 31, 2023, Pg. 3

The majority opinion (Justices Torres and Manglona) opted to declare P.L. 20-134 of "no effect" on the basis that it was "impliedly repealed" by subsequent abortion legislation, and declined to address the Ultra Vires question.

We Decline to Address the Ultra Vires Question

- In Re: Request of Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero, I Maga'Hagan Guahan, Relative to the Validity and Enforceability of Public Law No. 20-134, 2023 Guam 11, CRQ23-001, October 31, 2023, Pg. 27

 (Ultra Vires meaning that in 1990, and under Roe, the legislature did not have the authority to pass the subject law and was void ab initio - null from the beginning.)

The third Justice, Justice Carbullido, while concurring with the majority, opted to "address the Ultra Vires Question," holding that the law was void ab initio and spent twelve pages doing it, one page more than the majority spent (beginning on Pg. 19) arguing that the law was impliedly repealed:

I agree with the majority on its jurisdictional analysis and its conclusion that Public Law 20-134 was impliedly repealed. I further agree that 7 GCA § 4104 confers upon this court discretion to decline to provide relief even when its jurisdictional test is met. Where I part ways, is the decision to use that discretion in this case. In her ultra vires Question, the Governor properly asked this court to answer an important question about the scope of the power and authority of the Guam Legislature. This question merits an answer. I agree with the Governor that because Roe v. Wade was the law of the land in 1990, P.L. 20-134 was void ab initio, and the Legislature acted ultra vires in passing it. (Emphases added)

- In Re: Request of Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero, I Maga'Hagan Guahan, Relative to the Validity and Enforceability of Public Law No. 20-134, 2023 Guam 11, CRQ23-001, October 31, 2023, Pg. 30

Back to the Supreme Court of Georgia and copying directly from Pg. 21 of its Opinion issued on Oct. 24, 2023, just a week before the Supreme Court of Guam (per Justice Carbullido's Concurrence) issued its very different Opinion on Oct. 31, 2023. 

It is clear from these well-established principles of Georgia law that a Georgia court must look to Dobbs — not Roe — in determining whether the LIFE Act was void ab initio when enacted in 2019. In Dobbs, the United States Supreme Court overruled its earlier decision in Roe, declaring that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Dobbs, 142 SCt at 2242-2243, and Georgia courts are “not permit[ted] . . . to persist in an error of federal constitutional law” when that error is clear under controlling United States Supreme Court precedent, Lejeune v. McLaughlin, 296 Ga. 291, 297-298 (2) (766 SE2d 803) (2014) (emphasis in original) (holding that we could not adhere to our precedent interpreting the United States Constitution, even though our interpretation had been based on a decision of the United States Supreme Court, because a subsequent Supreme Court decision clarified that our precedent was “simply wrong”). Accordingly, the trial court erred in analyzing whether the LIFE Act was void ab initio under now-overruled Roe-era precedent that controlled before Dobbs issued, rather than under the now- controlling Dobbs decision.

The foregoing needs no interpretation. It's quite clear that the Georgia court, instead of finding the 2019 law void ab initio, in effect, found Roe itself (pursuant to Dobbs) void ab initio.

The questions before the Supreme Court of Guam were for declaratory judgment only and it is unclear to what effect this judgment will have as the matter over the constitutionality of P.L. 20-134 goes forward to the Ninth Circuit - which will have the Georgia court's opinion before it.

Meanwhile, it would behoove the self-declared pro-lifers in the Guam legislature to grab a hold of "Belle's Law, get rid of the "speech" provisions, and reintroduce it. 

NINTH CIRCUIT SAYS ABORTION IS NOT "HEALTHCARE"

If there is one thing that the 9th Circuit Opinion made clear in Raidoo v Moylan, it's that abortion is NOT "healthcare." And the second thing the Opinion makes clear is that there is no such thing as "my body my choice."

Quoting from the Opinion (emphases added):

Even assuming that doctors who perform abortions are otherwise similarly situated to doctors who perform other medical services, it was rational for the Guam legislature to treat them differently because abortion presents different considerations than other medical procedures. Unlike other medical procedures, abortion implicates fetal life in addition to the patient’s health. See Dobbs, 142 S. Ct. at 2277 (“‘[A]bortion is a unique act’ because it terminates ‘life or potential life.’”); Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 325 (1980) (“Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures, because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life.”).  

Clearly the Court, specifically quoting Dobbs, recognizes that abortion is "different" and that it is different because there is another life involved.

So the next time the Governor or Jayne (or their ilk) uses such terms, we need to respond with "why are you misrepresenting (lying to us about) "the law of the land." 

For 50 years we have had the "law of the land" (Roe) stuffed down our throats and told to shut up and sit down. We now have the "law of the land" on our side. 

Memorize the above paragraph - the highlighted parts, and have them at the ready. The pro-aborts are so used to our being on defense. This Opinion gives us a clear opportunity to go on offense. And it's time. 

FISHER AND BARNES DO NOT WANT TO CODIFY ROE AND CASEY. THEY WANT MUCH MORE.

By Tim Rohr

Following are some thoughts and questions relative to the article titled "'Be prepared': Bill 106 would let voters decide on abortion" as published in the Guam Daily Post on May 2, 2023. 

I.

Bill 106-37 was recently introduced by Senators Tom Fisher and Tina Muna-Barnes. Since the effect of their bill is to send the abortion issue directly to the voters, the senators have nicknamed their bill "The You Decide Bill." 

Given the nickname, voters may think that they are voting for or against abortion. They are not. Assuming that the Fisher-Barnes bill gets through the legislature and is enacted into law, voters will vote directly on what Fisher and Barnes have titled THE HEALTH PROTECTION ACT OF 2023 ("The ACT"). 

If The ACT passes, then abortion is legal in Guam. If The ACT doesn't pass, then abortion is legal in Guam - since it already is. The only difference is The ACT will strip away Guam's few existing abortion regulations, which are not enforced nor policed anyway. So there is really nothing for the voter to decide. 

II.

Then, of course, there is the matter of the false name of The ACT. It would have been nice if its sponsors had titled their legislation what it really is THE ABORTION PROTECTION ACT OF 2023, or if that's a little too truthful then maybe a title with the words "reproductive rights" in it - even if the object of The ACT is to terminate reproduction and not protect it. 

There's still time to fix it. And this is where our "pro-life" senators can step up. They won't have the votes to sink this ACT altogether, nor the same ACT as introduced by Senator Will Parkinson (Bill 111-37), however they can move to amend the name to call it what it is. 

Such a move will provoke immediate objections from the pro-aborts and this is what we want. We already know who is pro-abortion and who isn't. But it would be even more telling to see which senators want to hide the true intent of the legislation behind a completely false title. For if abortion is really healthcare, which they tell us it is over and over, then why not happily and proudly stand by the word "abortion?" Of course, we know why.

III.

The Post story reports:

He said it wasn't easy concluding that the public should be the ones to decide the abortion issue, but added that it felt necessary, as the Guam Legislature has not proven itself to be "particularly adept at resolving the question of reproductive health or abortion rights."

Beyond Fisher's beating up on his colleagues, the Guam Legislature has not HAD the opportunity to prove itself "adept at resolving the question of reproductive health or abortion rights" since no abortion legislation has come before the Legislature since the issue, via Dobbs, was returned to state legislatures, including Guam's. 

If Fisher is referring to pre-Dobbs legislation, then the Guam Legislature has proved itself to be very "adept" at handling the question because those measures were thoroughly vetted, passed, and enacted into law because not only were they constitutionally compliant, they were common sense and humane. They are as follows:

1. Parental consent for minors for abortion
2. Informed consent for women seeking abortion
3. An abortion reporting requirement
4. A ban on partial-birth abortion (a procedure in which a child, already fully delivered except for her head, is stabbed in the base of her skull whereupon her brains are scrambled and her skull is crushed and then fully delivered). 
5. A requirement to provide normal medical care for children who survive a failed abortion

If Fisher and Barnes have their way, then all of the above will go away:

If approved by voters, the Health Protection Act would supersede existing abortion laws on Guam, according to Fisher.

IV.

The Post reports:

...the Health Protection Act allows the health care provider to determine viability - the point in which a fetus can survive outside the womb with or without support - and prohibits limitations or restriction to abortions prior to fetal viability. 

Roe set "viability" at 28 weeks. Twenty years later, the Court in Casey acknowledged that new technologies had moved "viability"  to as few as "23 or 24 weeks." And now, more than three decades after Casey, "preemies" are surviving and thriving outside the womb at 21 weeks.

A baby born at 21 weeks gestation in Alabama last year is the most premature baby in the world to survive, according to Guinness World Records. - SOURCE

The Fisher-Barnes bill removes the scientific and legislative determination of viability and simply leaves it to the "provider to determine viability," a provider who is being paid to deliver a dead child, not a live one. 

V.

The Post reports:

The senator stated that the public would essentially decide on whether to codify a version of Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the landmark cases that once protected the right to an abortion in the United States.

Fisher contradicts himself. Casey upheld parental consent for minors, informed consent for women, waiting periods, and reasonable reporting requirements, all of which are current laws in Guam. Fisher himself says that all of these will go away:

If approved by voters, the Health Protection Act would supersede existing abortion laws on Guam, according to Fisher.

Fisher and Barnes do not want to codify Roe and Casey. They want absolute, unrestricted, and unaccountable freedom to abort. Given what Fisher and Barnes really want, they should be thankful for Dobbs which got rid of Roe and Casey and gave the ultimate power to abort to people like Fisher and Barnes. 

VI.

The Post reports:

He went on to discuss how the Dobbs decision may also put case law protecting interracial marriage in danger because it was founded in the Fourteenth Amendment, like abortion had been. 

Fisher is stretching the intelligence of his listeners here. But rather than refute Fisher, I'll let Justice Alito do it:

...the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment...has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

The right to abortion does not fall within this category...The abortion right is also critically different from any other right that this Court has held to fall within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of “liberty.” Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called “fetal life” and what the law now before us describes as an “unborn human being.”

PLAN "D" - "D" FOR DOUG

AG-Elect Douglas Moylan

Post-Dobbs, much is being made of "Belle's Law," a 1990 law introduced by the late Senator Elizabeth Arriola banning abortion and a law that still remains in the Guam code, but enjoined pursuant to Roe v Wade. 

In the wake of Dobbs (overturning Roe) controversy over Belle's Law was recently heightened after the incumbent Attorney General, Leevin Camacho - who opined that the injunction should remain, was defeated by incoming Attorney General, Doug Moylan, who has stated he will lift the injunction making Belle's Law outlawing abortion the law of Guam. 

For pro-lifers, the late senator is a saint, and she in fact may be. However,  as history and government abortion reports show, Belle's Law and its aftermath inadvertently opened the door to unopposed and unregulated abortion in Guam for the next 28 years.

The short version is this. 

Belle's Law provoked a constitutional challenge which GovGuam never had a chance of winning and cost Guam taxpayers millions of dollars. The legal mess and costs created a chilling effect on any future efforts to legislatively address abortion in Guam for nearly the next three decades. 

THE HEARTBEAT BILL AND THE REAL MATTER BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE

By Tim Rohr

As our own lawmakers currently debate Guam's Heartbeat Bill, a story in today's PDN relates a news story from Texas wherein a lawsuit under the Texas Heartbeat Act, from which the Guam bill was modeled, was thrown out of court. 

Texas ruling raises questions over private enforcement of abortion ban

Per the details of the story, the whole deal in Texas seems to have been a setup. A doctor performed an abortion in clear defiance of the new law and a lawyer filed a lawsuit against the doctor "with the intention of having the court...declare the law constitutional."