Women from places like Guam would have to travel farther than other Americans to terminate a pregnancy if the national right to the procedure is overturned.
All three U.S. territories in the Pacific — Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa — also have the potential to adopt prohibitions, according to a 2019 report by the Center for Reproductive Rights. None have legal protections for abortion, and they could revive old abortion bans or enact new ones, the report said.
Williams said many Guam residents need time off work, a hotel room and a rental car to travel for an abortion, adding more costs. Without Roe, Guam could revert to an abortion ban dating to 1990. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the law unconstitutional in 1992, but it has never been repealed.
The 32-year-old statute made it a felony for a doctor to perform the procedure except to save a woman’s life or prevent grave danger to her health, as certified by two independent physicians, or to end an ectopic pregnancy, which is a dangerous abnormal pregnancy that develops outside the uterus. Guam’s Legislature has been considering additional measures to restrict abortion. This month it held hearings on a bill modeled after a, usually around six weeks. The Texas law, which has withstood legal challenges so far, leaves enforcement up to private citizens through lawsuits instead of criminal prosecutions.
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