REGARDING THE FAILED OVERRIDE OF THE GOVERNOR'S VETO OF THE HEARTBEAT ACT

By Tim Rohr

Just some thoughts.

It was always known that should the Heartbeat Bill make it through the Legislature that Guam's most vociferous and powerful proponent of abortion for more than three decades and who is now the governor would veto it. And it was also known that there would never be enough votes to override the veto. 

As set forth several times previously in this blog, the Heartbeat Bill, at the time it was introduced was a good move and the best that pro-life advocates could do under Roe. The Heartbeat Bill also followed in the footsteps of eight Esperansa Project backed bills that were enacted into law, all of which incrementally combined to shut down Guam's abortion industry in 2018. 

However, the Dobbs decision overturning Roe changed all that. It is now possible to completely ban abortion and that will be the bottom line for the 37th Guam Legislature. No more beating around the bush. No more half measures. No more "I'm personally pro-life, but..." 

The Heartbeat Act, even if enacted into law, would not have banned abortion after detection of a fetal heartbeat. It simply permitted civil suits against certain persons involved in the abortion. 

SHE COULD HAVE PICKED A BETTER DAY...OR MAYBE NOT

By Tim Rohr

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero ("LLG") could have picked a better day to veto the Guam Heartbeat Act.

However, for LLG - who has been at the forefront of killing babies in the womb for at least three decades, and having just been re-elected by popular demand by the majority of her subjects - perhaps there was no better day to veto the Guam Heartbeat Act than on Dec. 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the First Martyrs who died for Christ, and whom were slaughtered by order of Herod the Great.

LLG's veto on this day gives new meaning to "The New Herod's." 

On the other hand, LLG's veto really means nothing in the context of the Dobbs decision which puts the fate of the unborn squarely back with the legislature - where it belongs - and where the real "New Herod"s" will emerge...and the voters who support them.

HOLLY RUSTICK'S TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY VS AMERICA

By Tim Rohr

Notwithstanding Holly Rustik's abortion supporting views in her Dec. 16 letter to the Pacific Daily News, Ms. Rustick founds her argument on a particularly common erroneous assumption, i.e. that lawmakers' first duty is to "represent constituents."

Ms. Rustick begins by calling on Guam's lawmakers to live up to their "job description, " beginning with "represent constituents." 

One wonders where Ms. Rustick found a copy of said lawmakers "job description." The only official job description for lawmakers is set forth in their oath of office:

“I solemnly swear (or affirm) in the presence of Almighty God that I will well and faithfully support the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the United States applicable to Guam and the laws of Guam, and that I will conscientiously and impartially discharge my duties as a member of the Guam Legislature (or as an officer of the government of Guam).” (Aug. 1, 1950, ch. 512, § 14, 64 Stat. 388.) 

Aside from the fact that elected lawmakers' Number One job description is to "faithfully support the Constitution of the United States" - which now permits states and territories to make their own own abortion laws (like the Heartbeat Bill which Ms. Rustick opposes), there is nothing in the oath that says they are to "represent constituents." 

ARCHDIOCESE OF AGANA STATEMENT ON PASSAGE OF THE HEARTBEAT BILL

 

LINK TO PDF

LET'S SEE WHO WILL DO IT

By Tim Rohr

Congrats to the author, sponsors, and backers of the Heartbeat Bill. It passed today in a vote of 8 to 7. 

The Heartbeat bill was conceived, authored, and introduced at a time no one could have imagined Roe being overturned; so legislation, like the Heartbeat Bill, was the best we could constitutionally hope for. 

And, even though Roe was overturned by Dobbs in June 2022, opening the door for a complete ban on abortion, by then the Heartbeat Bill had already been introduced and deposited into the legislative machinery.

Meanwhile, opponents have nothing to worry about. Governor LLG is eager to veto it and there are not ten votes to override her veto. So everyone wins in the end. The supporters get to claim a victory and the opponents get to shut it down. In fact, the probability of this scenario was probably always known by the smarter heads in the Legislature which may be why they just let it go through. 

AN OPPORTUNITY WE HAVE NOT HAD IN 50 YEARS - WHO'S IT GOING TO BE?

By Tim Rohr

In the previous post, I addressed what St. Pope John Paul II calls "a particular problem of conscience" which "can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on."

John Paul II clarifies that a lawmaker, in supporting a law that does less than fully ban abortion "does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects."

HOWEVER, the pope says, this is only true "when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law..."

Prior to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, it was "not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law...," and so it was entirely licit to support abortion legislation that attempted "to limit its evil aspects." In fact, The Esperansa Project spent ten years doing exactly this and saw eight of its bills enacted into law. 

A MORAL CONUNDRUM ANSWERED and "BOTH-AND" or "EITHER-OR" ??? - ABORTION IN GUAM

During his talk show on The Point on Dec. 13, the show's host, Bob Klitzkie, brought up an important moral conundrum, which, paraphrased, goes like this:

1. Abortion is currently legal up until birth.
2. A bill is introduced to ban abortion with no exceptions.
3. There are 15 senators who will vote on the bill.
4. 7 senators are in favor and 7 senators are opposed.
5. One senator, the deciding vote, is in favor of the ban so long as there are exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.
6. The senators who support the full abortion ban believe life begins at conception and abortion at any stage of pregnancy and for any reason is always wrong. (1)
7. Can the 7 senators who believe life begins at conception and abortion under any circumstance is always the killing of an innocent, defenseless, human being accept the holdout senator's exceptions in order to at least limit abortion, or is their acceptance of those exceptions morally evil in that they would materially cooperate in the killing of an innocent, defenseless human being?

Fortunately, at least for Catholics, this conundrum has already been answered. Pope John Paul II addressed this very issue in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life - 1995):

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. 

RIDGELL IS RIGHT

By Tim Rohr

On Dec. 2, I posted the following on an FB post. 

I heard that the Heartbeat Bill has been reported out of committee and is on the current legislative agenda. I’m going to predict what is going to happen. The bill will come up on the floor. The sponsors will say something supportive. The senators who oppose it will say nothing. So there will be no debate. They will vote to place it in the 3rd reading file - which means it will go to a final vote. At the final vote it will get voted down. The sponsors get to say they tried and the opponents will avoid the negative publicity that a debate on the floor would bring.

Per the latest news, ten days later, I was proved right that the bill would be placed "in the 3rd reading file - which means it will go to a final vote," but was wrong about a couple other things. 

First, it appears from the news that there was at least a bit of a debate, and perhaps because the senators who opposed the bill still wanted their voice on the record. One of those senators was Clynt Ridgell - of whose comments I will say more later. 

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."

ATTY ANITA ARRIOLA AND THOSE EVIL MEN

By Tim Rohr

This morning on K57, Patti Arroyo interviewed Attorney Anita Arriola regarding the current status of the Heartbeat Bill. The whole of Arriola's position was functionally: "those evil men," specifically Doug Moylan, Bob Klitzkie, Peter Sgro, and Tim Rohr. And Arriola's charge against said "evil men" was 1) that said men "write letters to the editor," and 2) they are men.

Meanwhile...

• Never mind the fact that the aforesaid letter writers have no public power other than to voice an opinion.
• Never mind the fact that the Heartbeat Bill was actually introduced by a woman lawmaker. 
• Never mind the fact that 4 of the 8 senators who voted to place the bill on the current legislative agenda are female senators.
• Never mind the fact that the real reason abortion is not available in Guam is because women doctors who openly advocate for abortion (and write their own letters to the editor) like Dr. Ellen Bez, an OB-GYN from Sagua Managu, will not provide abortions or even abortion information as required by the informed consent law. 
• Never mind the fact that the current governor, a woman, and a registered nurse - and as such a "qualified person," chooses not to provide informed consent information to women seeking abortion and instead forces women to access the required information via teleconference with doctors in Hawaii who they don't know and who will not be in Guam to care for them should something go wrong with their do-it-yourself, mail-order abortions.

ARCHDIOCESE OF AGANA SENDS WRONG MESSAGE: OKAY TO KILL UNBORN UNTIL HEARTBEAT IS DETECTED

By Tim Rohr

The following was sent to the Pacific Daily News as a Letter to the Editor. It has not yet been published. Given that the subject bill is expected to come up on the floor of the legislature this week for a vote, JW chooses to make the letter public via this forum now - with supporting links and references. Note: the Letter was published by the Pacific Daily News on Dec. 5, 2022. 

Per a recent news story in the Pacific Daily News, the Archdiocese of Agana, specifically its vicar general, Father Romeo Convocar, has called on Vice-Speaker Barnes to place the Guam "Heartbeat Bill" on its session agenda.

Unfortunately, Fr. Convocar's support of the "Heartbeat Bill" inadvertently implies that killing a child in the womb is okay up until a fetal heartbeat is detected. This is in direct contradiction to universal Catholic teaching which holds that life begins at conception and that the direct killing of an innocent, defenseless human being is always intrinsically evil. 

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.

Prior to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, incremental pro-life legislation like the "Heartbeat Bill" was the best that could be hoped for, and advocating for such legislation was even officially encouraged by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae.

"...when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects." - Evangelium Vitae 73 Note: Between 2008 and 2018, the Esperansa Project did precisely this in backing eight pro-life bills into law and functionally shutting down Guam's abortion clinics in 2018. 

However, since the Dobbs decision has opened the door for a full, legal ban on abortion, Fr. Convocar would have better served the church he represents by writing a letter of support to Attorney General-elect, Douglas Moylan, who has stated his intent to dissolve the injunction placed on Guam’s 1990 abortion ban.

Fr. Convocar’s letter to Vice-Speaker Barnes is yet another example of Guam’s Catholic Church leadership continually stepping on itself when it wanders into the public arena - usually after being baited - and without proper counsel. Unfortunately, as recent history has demonstrated, said leadership’s public missteps are not paid for by the Catholics on the altar, but by the Catholics in the pews. 

LETTER BY PETER SGRO JR: ABORTION STOPS A BEATING HEART

 Read at Esperansa.org

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Criticism of anti-abortion bill really misses the mark

 Criticism of anti-abortion bill really misses the mark

by Tim Rohr

In “Health, not politics, should drive medical decisions” (The Guam Daily Post, Letter to the Editor, Apr. 11, 2022), the authors, Anita Arriola and 12 other women, began their letter with: “It’s like clockwork: you can count on it. Virtually every election year one or more senators copy an anti-abortion bill, ... slap their names on it, and introduce it in the Guam Legislature.”

As the saying goes: you are welcome to your own opinion but not your own facts.

The last “anti-abortion bill” introduced by a Guam lawmaker was in 2016, an election year, but given it was introduced in January, nearly a year before the election, it hardly qualifies as a campaign move.

CONTINUED