AND THE CHAMORU WILL BE NO MORE

By Tim Rohr

An interesting thing showed up in the Guam Daily Post today (Friday, Sep. 15, 2023), and here it is:

I am not familiar with the goings-on of the Guam Election Commission and am a bit in the dark as to why said Commission would have a discussion relative to Bill 106-37 on its agenda for its next Regular Meeting. So let's explore.

Note: I'll leave item IX. Legal Counsel, for later.

First, what is Bill 106-37?

As set forth in the above agenda, Bill 106-37 is:

AN ACT TO PROVIDE A LEGISLATIVE SUBMISSION FOR CONSIDERATION BY GUAM VOTERS AT THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION; AND TO PROVIDE GUAM VOTERS THE POWER TO DECIDE ON REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

The bill is authored and sponsored by Senators Tom Fisher and Tina Rose Muna-Barnes.

Fisher has nicknamed the bill the "You Decide" bill since it proposes a referendum which pushes the issue directly to the voters and away from the legislature.

But what is the issue?

Fisher and Barnes further confound the issue by proposing, in the legislation, a so-called short title, which is: 

"The Health Protection Act of 2023"

However, the Fisher/Barnes bill has nothing to do with health or protection and everything to do with eviscerating just about every legal protection for the unborn and their mothers:

Legislative Findings and Intent. Purpose. It is the purpose of this Act to allow health care providers to provide abortion services without limitations or requirements that single out abortion services for restrictions that are more burdensome than those restrictions imposed on medically comparable procedures and do not significantly advance reproductive health or the safety of abortion services and make abortion services more difficult to access. - LINK

Compare the "purpose" of the bill to what its authors want to call it: 

"The Health Protection Act of 2023."

Why not call it "The Abortion Protection Act of 2023?" That's exactly what it is. But of course Fisher and Barnes didn't and they won't. 

All pro-aborts must hide their real lust for "murdering babies" as Sen. Telo Taitague recently and rightly termed it, behind "1984-ish" double-speak. 

But this "double-speak" appears to be why the bill is on the GEC agenda. 

Per 3 GCA § 16105. Preparation of Ballot Title by Election Commission:

The Election Commission shall provide a ballot title for each initiative, referendum or legislative submission to be submitted to the voters within ten (10) days after the measure is certified for a position on the ballot, and publish said title once a week for three (3) consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation on Guam. The ballot title may differ from the legislative or other title of the measure, and shall express the purpose of the measure in not more than one hundred (100) words. The Election Commission shall give a true and impartial statement of the purpose of the measure in such language that the ballot title shall not be an argument, or likely to create prejudice either for or against the measure. (Emphases added)

So there it is. Since Fisher and Barnes have thrown off their "legislative yoke" (and what they are being paid for) by shoving this issue onto the voters, by law, the Guam Election Commission gets to "pull back the curtain" on Fisher and Barnes and bare their "murdering babies" bill (again, see Telo) in words the electorate can plainly read and understand.

Of course we don't know if the GEC will do this, but here's hoping they will. 

Meanwhile, Fisher and Barnes have nothing to worry about. Stat after stat, report after report, election after election, affirms, confirms, and re-affirms and confirms that the majority of Guam voters, the majority of whom are communion-going Catholics, will support abortion on demand. 

There is nothing to fear. Fisher and Barnes (and their sidekick Parkinson) will be the heroes of the CHamoru Self-Extermination Project (since 2/3 of abortions are of children of CHamoru ethnicity), and Micronesians or Koreans or Chinese or Filipinos or whoever will happily reproduce themselves into the majority and the CHamoru will be no more. 

And you voted for this Guam. 

SEN. FISHER MEETS WITH PRESIDENT OF CATHOLIC PRO-LIFE COMMITTEE

The following is an account of a meeting between Catholic Pro-Life Committee President Sharon O'Mallan and Senator Tom Fisher prior to the introduction of the Fisher-Barnes Abortion bill (Bill 106-37). Ms. O'Mallan has given her permission to publish her account. JW has redacted two names that are not relevant to the story.

+++++

I received a copy of the DRAFT proposed legislation with the names of Thomas Fisher, Chris Barnett and Tina Rose Muna Barnes.  At first glance it looks like it is a proposal for a referendum of the Abortion Law PL 20-134.  Upon closer look I noticed that it not only takes a vote BUT proposes a completely new and very abortion law to replace existing laws now.  

 The question is, “Shall the Health Protection Act of 2023, as recited herein and below, be enacted into Guam law?” After reading the new proposed Health Protection Act of 2023, I felt I needed to talk to our new senators to find out where they are in this new legislation and why they are writing it.  I left messages to meet with both Senators Barnett and Fisher.   I was given a meeting date with Tom Fisher for Friday, March 10, 2023 at 11:45a.m.

 On Thursday night March 9, 2023, Senator Chris Barnett calls me up and tells me that he is withdrawing his name on the legislation.   I wish I could take credit for this but he told me that Attorney XXX called him up the other night and gave him information on the draft bill and also an earful…   so he was going to remove his name.  He thought this bill was only a question regarding the referendum and didn’t know about the rest of the language.    

When I start recounting my meeting with Tom Fisher, I suspect I am going to forget some of the details of all that was said since the meeting was about 20 minutes long and I did not take notes or make a recording.  My companion xxx was my support/witness person.  After the meeting she told me that she couldn’t believe how I kept going and going by pressing the issues when he kept getting louder and louder and shouting at some points.  I said, I guess I didn’t realize it at the time even when he started hitting the desk towards the end.  I was trying my hardest to understand him as he constantly wouldn’t let me finish.

This is my summary of the meeting.   Tom Fisher says he wrote the legislation.  I tried to ask him why such an abortion minded bill when he stated that a woman has a right to an abortion and it’s nobody’s business.    I started trying to point out some of the parts of the law saying that if this passes it would replace all the good laws passed to protect both the woman and the baby.   I told him that abortion has never been illegal.   He said that it has been around since “ancient times” and was not a problem then.  I said, before ultrasound we could not really know what happened inside the womb and what happened during an abortion.  Now we know and we cannot go back to “ancient times”

I told him that if this bill passes then Partial Birth Abortion would be legal again.   The act of delivering a baby partially and leaving the head inside the birth canal and then sticking a sharp instrument up his head and scrambling his/her’s brains until he/she painfully dies!  He said, it’s the woman’s choice and it was none of our business.  

I said, your bill would make abortion legal up to right before the baby is born.   He said it’s the woman’s choice and none of our business.  

He questioned me about why I am doing this and I told him that in an abortion someone dies.   A little baby dies.   If the mother changes her mind the next day, it’s too late because she can’t go back and bring her dead baby back to life.   I told him I want to stop this tragedy before the baby dies and the mother is forever suffering from this.   He told me that I should mind my own business and the mother will be fine.

I told him that this law would remove the parents consent rights and minors could have abortion without their knowledge.   He said GOOD because then those parents won’t force their kids to stay pregnant.  He said that if minors want an abortion they should be allowed to have an abortion!

I told him that this law would remove the abortion reporting law.  He said GOOD because it’s none of our business.   I told him that these laws are meant to get statistical information and also for the safety of the woman.   I told him this law provides for Complication Abortion Reporting.   I showed him the 2022 report where there was a complication reported.  He turned around and tried to make it look like the doctor had broken HIPPA laws.   I told him the doctor didn’t break HIPPA law!   He asked me how I knew about the complication?  I told him from the report!!!   How did I get the report?   I said from Public Health!!!   It’s the law!!!  He kept trying to twist it all around saying there was broken HIPPA law from the doctor which I told him I never met and if he reads the report he can see that the doctor was only following the law.  (later on I felt like telling him to do his own FOIA with public health to get the abortion reports!!!.  It was a lot of work to get Abortion Reporting back on track and it is suspected that a lot of doctors are still not reporting. )  

I brought up to him the part of the proposed legislation where he claims that abortion services has been obstructed across the United States and Guam in various ways, including blockages of health care facilities, and associated violence.    I asked him WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? Did this happen on Guam???    He said that YOU PEOPLE HOLDING UP YOUR ROSARIES IN FRONT OF AN ABORTION CLINIC!!!   He said if a woman was coming to get an abortion and came up to the clinic with people holding rosaries and praying, that is VERY INTIMIDATING AND VIOLENT!!!   She would be afraid to proceed and that would delay her abortion.  (Can I mention here at this point he was holding his hand up as if holding a rosary.   Yep… and his voice was elevated.   Yep, us rosary wielding violent people…)  I told him we were praying for conversion and change of heart.   He said…. IT’S NONE OF OUR BUSINESS.

I then tried to bring up that we are trying our hardest to help these women by making sure there are services available to help them.   I also told him that our Catholic Pro-Life Committee is also offering Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats which is post-abortive healing.   He blew up here in a shouted disbelieving laugh-- shouting…. “SO YOU ARE THE ONES BRINGING THAT CRAP HERE!!!”   Then he went into this whole spill about us trying to remind woman of their abortions and dragging them through it again…. Then he BANGED his hand on the table saying “I SHOULD NAME THIS BILL THE MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS BILL”  

 At different times during the meeting which lasted about 20 minutes, he kept saying that we are very judgmental people.   I kept telling him that we are not.  We are not judging anyone about their abortion, we are trying to stop it before it happens to save the babies life as well as the mother’s well being for the rest of her life.  

Can I add… I told him I now have to add him to my prayer list for his conversion.   He said…”put me on your list!”  with a straight forward sneer on his face.   My long list…

   

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.”

NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS?

By Tim Rohr

We are constantly lectured by the pro-aborts that what a woman does with her body is "none of your business." 

Okay, fair enough. Never mind the scientific fact that there is another body in the woman's body, let's grant the pro-aborts their argument for now. 

The question then becomes: "Okay, at what point is that "other thing in your body" not your body?

According to our now-governor, even after that "other thing in your body" is no longer in your body but laying on a delivery table or in a waste bucket still alive and gasping for life, that "other thing that WAS in your body" is still "your body" and you have the right to kill "the thing," even if the thing is no longer in your body - and that's because you wanted the thing dead in the first place.  

(Listen to Tall Tales every Friday after the "half-time" show to hear or watch a recording of the now-governor arguing for the death of the living "thing" at a legislative public hearing.)

Okay, that's a bit extreme, so let's back up a bit. 

Let's say the thing is already mostly delivered except for the thing's head which is still inside your body. Is it still your body? If so, then is it okay with you to stick a knife into the back of the thing's head and scramble its brains before delivering the rest of the now-dead thing? 

Note: In case you don't know this is called partial-birth abortion, and Sens. Fisher and Barnes' new bill will remove the ban on this particular way of killing the thing.

Okay, that's still a bit extreme, I mean the thing's arms and legs flailing about at the moment the knife stabs into its brains (as described by nurse witnesses). So let's back up a little more. Let's back up to Roe, the pro-abort's monument upon which the "none of your business" mantra is built.

Pro-aborts will probably be surprised to learn that Roe never said "it's none of your business." In fact, it pretty much said it's none of the woman's business.  

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) at XI, the Court wrote:

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.

(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

Note that in (a) the decision is not the woman's but "the woman's attending physician." And note that in (b) and (c), the Court clearly makes a case for "it's the state's business." In fact, it could be said that the recent decision in Dobbs, giving the regulation of abortion back to the states, was just doing what Roe itself had already called for 50 years earlier, at least for the second and third trimesters. 

So, at least according to Roe re abortion in the second and third trimesters, a decision to "kill the thing" in your body IS "our business," because "who is the state" other than we, the people, who reside and vote there?

But back to where we started for a minute. Is it your business to care about a child who is demonstrably abused, neglected or abandoned? If so, at what point is that child "your business?" Still in the womb, partially delivered out of the womb, out of the womb altogether, 3 minutes old, 3 years old? Where's the line? 

At least Roe drew a line, even with conditions, at about 12 weeks gestation, or the end of the first trimester. And given that even during the first trimester the decision was never the woman's but the physician's (probably a man at the time), it could be said that the ultimate decision to abort was never the woman's. 

And since the pro-aborts cannot provide a line - even wanting the legal right to kill the thing already delivered and still alive  - we will. And our line is this: 

IT IS NEVER OKAY TO KILL A HELPLESS, INNOCENT, DEFENSELESS HUMAN BEING. NEVER. 

TIME FOR OUR GUYS TO FORCE THEIR COLLEAGUES TO DO THEIR DAMN JOB

By Tim Rohr

Sens. Fisher and Barnes have introduced Bill 106-37. 

The bill begins by calling for a referendum on abortion. 

Given the recent news of AG Moylan's recommendation of a referendum to the Supreme Court relative to the status of P.L. 20-134 (Belle's Law), one might think that Fisher and Barnes are simply carrying through on Moylan's recommendation.

They aren't.

Under cover of a bill that begins by calling for a referendum is an entirely new abortion bill, the Health Protection Act of 2023; and the stated purpose of this brand new legislation is "to allow health care providers to provide abortion services without limitations..."

According to KUAM: "Fisher says the measure, called the 'You Decide' bill, takes no stance on the controversial issue." 

That's not true.

In the Act's Findings and Intent, Fisher and Barnes set forth probably the most pointed pro-abortion argument ever to appear in legislative print, especially in regards to their argument that "abortion is one of the safest medical procedures in the United States." 

Yet Fisher tells us that he "takes no stance." 

I'd say "amazing" or "unbelievable," but such head fakes, if not outright in-your-face lies, are so common from the pro-aborts that there is nothing amazing or unbelievable about what they say or do. Even the name of the Act, Health Protection Act of 2023, is an in-your-face lie. 

Meanwhile, where are the so-called "pro-life" legislators? Where is your bill? Never mind the referendum. Don't be cowards. Get in there and force your colleagues to do their damn job.