Abortion is permitted in isolated Guam. And Almost Unattainable.
Abortion is permitted in isolated Guam. And Almost Unattainable.
On Guam, a small U.S. territory located 1,600 miles south of Japan, the Pregnancy Control Clinic, housed in a squat, beige structure next to a bowling alley, handled the majority of the abortions for decades.
However, the facility now seems deserted since the doctor who ran it retired seven years ago. A note from Dr Edmund A. Griley is taped to the front door and reads, “My last day of seeing patients is November 18, 2016,” and it is next to an ancient medical exam table and a vanity with a loose tap. “I advise you to start looking for a new doctor as soon as possible.”
Since Dr. Griley passed away, his abandoned clinic has served as a dusty reminder of Guam’s history and, according to some, its future.
Although abortion is permitted in Guam up to 13 weeks of pregnancy, and even later in some circumstances, the last abortionist left the territory in 2018. Hawaii is an eight-hour journey away and has the nearest abortion facility on American territory. And a current legal dispute may soon prevent most Guam women from accessing abortion pills, which are their only remaining option for obtaining a legal abortion.
Guam, a small island in the Pacific, stands out as anti-abortion campaigners around the nation seize the opportunity presented by the Roe v. Wade decision.
The island of 154,000 people, according to forces on both sides of the abortion debate, is on track to become the cleanest illustration of what life would be like with a nearly total prohibition. More than a dozen states have outlawed the majority of abortions, requiring women who wish to end their pregnancies there to fly abroad, sometimes at significant expense and health risk. However, none are as remote as Guam.
Attorney General of Guam and anti-abortion Republican Douglas Moylan remarked, “Guam is a litmus test.” “I would say Guam would be one of the places in the United States where anti-abortion forces would succeed.”
Two physicians with licences to practise medicine in Guam who are willing to perform abortions are both headquartered in Hawaii, where they can consult with patients via video chats and issue abortion pills. If the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstates a territorial law requiring women to physically visit a doctor in order to receive tablets, that may change.
Guam has a strong anti-abortion mentality, and there have been additional initiatives to further limit the practise. The attorney general, Mr. Moylan, is battling in federal court to resurrect a 1990 statute that outlawed almost all abortions but was overturned by a federal judge. In the interim, a bill that would outlaw most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy was approved by the legislature last year. Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, a Democrat, a nurse, and the island’s first female governor, overrode her veto.
Prior to the Roe v. Wade ruling, she recalls caring for women who were “haemorrhaging because either they self-aborted or they went to underground abortion clinics and they didn’t do it right.”
Ms. Leon Guerrero, who is the president of the Guam Nurses Association, testified against the 1990 law, which would have made it illegal to perform, receive, or seek an abortion unless it was a medical emergency or to urge women to have one. The statute is still in effect despite a federal court’s ruling that it is illegal and prohibiting the territory administration from applying it.
Due to our greater isolation from health care, everything that happens elsewhere has an influence on Guam and the women who live here, according to the governor.
