Federal Court Preserves Abortion Access in Guam

Case: Guam Society of OBGYNs v. Guerrero

March 24, 2023
ACLU

HAGÅTÑA, Guam — A federal district court in Guam today denied Attorney General Douglas Moylan’s request that it lift a decades-old permanent injunction and allow a total abortion ban to take effect. This ruling means essential, life-saving abortion care will remain accessible on the island, and doctors and their patients will not face potential criminal prosecution for providing or accessing care.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and attorneys Anita Arriola and Vanessa Williams filed a brief earlier this month in opposition to reinstating the ban on behalf of three Guam-licensed physicians, including the only two physicians providing abortions to patients in Guam, and Famalao’an Rights, a Guam-based reproductive justice group

Continued: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-preserves-abortion-access-in-guam

24.03.2023

News

ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project

American Civil Liberties Union

Anita Arriola

Douglas Moylan

Famalao’an Rights

Guam Society of OBGYNs v. Guerrero

The Fight Over Abortion Access In Guam Has Broad Implications For Women In The Pacific

Guam is a hub for medical services in the region, often the first stop for patients seeking care before coming to Hawaii.

By Anita Hofschneider
Dec 23, 2022

This political moment feels familiar to Anita Arriola. Thirty-two years ago, the attorney filed a lawsuit to stop what would have been the most restrictive ban on abortion in the United States from going into effect in her home island of Guam.

It was a bill sponsored by her mother, then a local senator, and unanimously approved by Guam’s unicameral Legislature. Arriola had been a public interest attorney in San Francisco before returning home to the U.S. territory. She took on the case, despite the family tension and the threat of excommunication by Guam’s archbishop.

Continued: https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/12/the-fight-over-abortion-access-in-guam-has-broad-implications-for-women-in-the-pacific/

There Are No Abortion Providers in Guam. We Must Change That

BY MARIA DOLOJAN, Teen Vogue
MARCH 17, 2021

In 2019, when news broke that a 12 year-old girl in my island community on Guam was raped and impregnated, reality set in for me and many women and girls. It was the first time some of us realized that we did not have any abortion providers in Guam, and it would take extraordinary measures for someone from our island to get an abortion. She would have to fly thousands of miles to Hawai‘i — and because she likely comes from a poor family who does not have the financial means to pursue abortion services elsewhere, she would not able to end the pregnancy.

It was a wakeup call.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/there-are-no-abortion-providers-in-guam

Getting an abortion on Guam requires a $1,000, eight-hour flight. A lawsuit could change that

The ACLU is suing the US territory over restrictive laws that block people from accessing telemedicine medication abortions

Michelle Broder Van Dyke in Honolulu
Mon 22 Feb 2021

Getting an abortion on Guam, a remote US territory in the Pacific Ocean, has never been simple. Before 2016 there were only two abortion doctors on the entire island, and anti-abortion protesters would often stand outside their clinics with signs.

But since 2018, it has been impossible. That year Guam lost its last abortion provider when Dr William Freeman retired and moved away, and the doctor who took over refused to conduct them. This means that the closest US abortion clinic is now in Hawaiʻi, an eight-hour and $1,000 flight away. The number of abortions on Guam dropped from more than 200 a year in 2017 to zero.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/22/guam-abortions-aclu-lawsuit

Guam – Clinic no longer provides abortion services

Clinic no longer provides abortion services

Jamie Ward | The Guam Daily
June 23, 2018

The Guam Women's Clinic is no longer performing abortions, and apparently that leaves Guam with nobody who will perform one.

While the website for the Guam Women's Clinic still operates, and comes up as the first listing when "abortion services Guam" is Googled, a call to the number listed confirmed that Dr. William Freeman has retired and that Dr. Jeffrey Gabel, who's taken over the clinic, does not provide those services as Freeman did.

continued: https://www.postguam.com/news/local/clinic-no-longer-provides-abortion-services/article_1d126d96-6eb5-11e8-8cdc-2b1558689ff8.html

23.06.2018