HONOLULU (AP) – U.S. women far away from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are likely to have to distance themselves from other Americans to terminate their pregnancies if the Supreme Court reverses a precedent in establishing a national right to abortion in the United States. . .
Hawaii is the closest state to the United States where abortion is legal under local law. However, Honolulu is 3,800 miles (6,100 kilometers) away, about 50% farther from Boston than Los Angeles.
“For a lot of people looking for abortion treatment, it could be on the moon,” said Vanessa L. Williams, an attorney active in the Guam People for Choice group.
It is difficult to have an abortion on Guam, a small, strong Catholic island where some 170,000 people live in southern Japan.
The last doctor to perform a surgical abortion retired in 2018. Two Guam -licensed doctors living in Hawaii barely see patients and Send them medical pills for abortion. But this alternative is only available up to 11 weeks of pregnancy.
Now there is a chance that the limited health version of this TV will also disappear.
All three U.S. territories in the Pacific – Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa – have the potential to be banned, according to a 2019 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights. None of them have legal protection against abortion and they can reinstate old abortion bans or introduce new ones, the report said.
Many women will be banned from traveling to neighboring states where abortion is allowed, to Hawaii or the west coast of the United States.
The continuous flight from Guam to Honolulu takes about eight hours. Only one commercial airline flies the route. A recent online search showed the cheapest tickets at the end of May for $ 2,500.
Williams said many Guam residents need free time, hotel rooms, and car rental to have an abortion, which adds to the additional cost.
Abortion was made legal in Hawaii in 1970, three years before Rose. For now, the state allows abortion as long as the fetus can live outside the womb. It is therefore legal if the patient’s life or health is in danger.
A flight to an Asian country that allows abortion would be faster, but some reproductive rights activists in Guam said they have heard nothing from anyone doing so. First, it will require a passport that many do not have, said Kiana Yabut of the Famalao’an Rights group.
Without Roy, Guam could have returned to the abortion ban in 1990. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declared the law unconstitutional in 1992, but it was never repealed.
James Canto, Guam’s deputy attorney general, agreed this month in an interview with a Guam senator that abortion laws in various states and territories would become “land laws” if repealed .
But Alexa Colby-Molinas, deputy director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Ninth Circle continued to enforce the law in 1990, meaning the Guam Attorney General would have to ask the U.S. District Court to cancel the command execution. . He.
The 32-year law made it a criminal offense to perform a procedure by a doctor, except to save a woman’s life or to prevent a serious threat to her health, as certified by two independent doctors, or to terminate an ectopic pregnancy, which is dangerous. An abnormal pregnancy that develops outside the womb.
It made it a crime for a woman to have an abortion, to seek advice from a man.
The Guam legislature is considering additional measures to limit abortion. This month she held hearings on the Texas New Law Bill model that prohibits abortion after heart activity begins, usually for about six weeks. Law in Texas, which has so far endured legal challenges Enforcement leaves private citizens to face trial rather than trial.
Peter Srgo, the Guam lawyer who drafted the proposal, said its adoption would dispel speculation that Guam would ban abortions or eliminate them.
So you choose. What do you want? Because for me, in any case, I win. Either way, people win. “Either way, the pro-life movement will have a big win no matter what happens,” he said.
The possibility that abortion may become less available on Guam has prompted some nonprofits to join forces with pregnant women in need, said Mona McManus, chief executive of the island’s Safe Haven Pregnancy Center.
Her organization, which opposes abortion, provides free pregnancy tests, prenatal and parenting lessons, and information about adoption and abortion. He recently created a Packaging Services Group along with other nonprofits to provide housing, care, adoption and other services.
Jane Flores, director of the Women’s Bureau, a government agency on Guam, believes the population will still have access to abortion drugs if it is revoked. But he wonders if the legislature can also declare it through law.
“At what point do you start looking for people in the mail?” he says.
In the Atlantic, lawmakers in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico changed the law Prohibiting abortion starting at 22 weeks, or when a doctor determines that the fetus will survive, is the only exception if a woman’s life is in danger. This is almost entirely in accordance with U.S. state law, albeit more limited than the current state of Puerto Rico, which does not set a time limit.
Source: Huffpost
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.