LAST week, a Guam senator said many women and doctors were insulted by the passage of Bill 52, also known as the informed consent bill, that requires a 24-hour waiting period for information on alternatives be provided to pregnant women considering abortion.

Bill 52 reignited islandwide debate about abortion that has again pitted mother against daughter, son against father, woman against man. This uncomfortable and inherently emotional debate is necessary because it forces us as a community to deal with the difficult issues of life and death. But, even before we get over the embarrassment of such a conversation, life and death decisions are being made by island doctors in hospitals and abortion clinics all around Guam.

Each working day, an abortion is committed on Guam. Each year, approximately 300 unborn babies are killed legally while they are still alive in their mother's womb. Chamorro families are responsible for 57 percent of all abortions and Filipinos come in next at 15 percent. Married women account for approximately 30 percent of all abortions performed on our island.?

The Hippocratic Oath invokes all physicians to swear, “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.”

Don Sloan, abortion provider, says “If a woman with a serious illness – say heart disease or diabetes – gets pregnant, the abortion procedure may be as dangerous for her as going through pregnancy ... with diseases like lupus, multiple sclerosis, even breast cancer, the chance that pregnancy will make the disease worse is no greater that the chance that the disease will either stay the same or improve. And medical technology has advanced to a point where even women with diabetes and kidney disease can be seen through a pregnancy safely by a doctor who knows what he's doing. We've come a long way since my mother's time – the idea of abortion to save the mothers' life is something that people cling to because it sounds noble and pure. But medically speaking, it probably doesn't exist. It's a real stretch of our thinking.”

D&E

According to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sept. 1, 1976, 126[1] 83-90, “Of the various ways to perform abortion after the midpoint of pregnancy, there is only one that never, ever results in live births. It is D&E (dilation and evacuation) and not only is it foolproof, but many researchers consider it safer, cheaper, and less unpleasant for the patient. However, it is particularly stressful to medical personnel. This is because D&E requires literally cutting the fetus from the womb, and then reassembling the parts, or at least keeping them all in view, to assure that the abortion is complete.”

Abortion clinic worker Dora Greenwald reported, “A lot of people say they're killing their baby. You get a lot of that. Some people afterwards get very upset and say 'I killed my baby.' Or even before, they say 'My circumstances are such that I can't keep it, but I'm killing my baby.’”

Faye Wattleton, past president of Planned Parenthood, states: “Women are not stupid ... women have always known that there was a life there. ... I am fully aware of that. I am fully aware [that it's not a frog or a ferret that's being killed, that it's a baby].”

Judith Arcana, an abortion activist, spoke at a London abortion seminar and said, “ We, in the States, have dealt heavily, up to now, in euphemism. I think one of the reasons why the 'good guys' – the people in favor of abortion rights – lost a lot of ground is that we have been unwilling to talk to women about what it means to abort a baby. We don't ever talk about babies, we don't ever talk about what is being decided in abortion. We never talk about responsibility. The word 'choice' is the biggest euphemism. Some use the phrases 'products of conception' and ‘contents of the uterus,’ or exchange the word ‘pregnancy’ for the word ‘fetus.’ I think this is a mistake tactically and strategically, and I think it’s wrong. ... It is morally and ethically wrong to do abortions without acknowledging what it means to do them. I performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am in favor of women having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening.”