Lina'la' yan Esperansa

"Lex Magister"
"...the Church encourages political leaders, starting with those who are Christians, not to give in, but to make those choices which, taking into account what is realistically attainable, will lead to the re-establishment of a just order in the defense an promotion of the value of life." 
Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 90

The Incremental Approach

While we believe that all deliberate killing of the unborn is intrinsically evil, we recognize that current constitutional case law allows for almost unlimited abortion upon demand.  Despite this tragedy, we see many incremental steps that can be taken to reduce the violence done to the unborn in this country and territory.  As you might expect, this approach to protecting human life from its conception is often referred to as an "incremental" approach. 

Possible Laws

There are at least nine different legislative strategies that pro-life legislators have successfully undertaken: 

  1. Fetal homicide laws that make the act of killing an unborn fetus an act of criminal homicide.
  2. Mandating parental notice and consent prior to conducting abortions on unemancipated minors.
  3. Enacting "born-alive" laws that mandate emergency care be given to babies that survive abortion attempts.
  4. Enacting "informed choice" laws that mandate that abortion providers inform their patients about the development of their unborn child, public and private sources of support if the woman decides to keep their baby, and the health risks involved with abortion.
  5. Mandating waiting periods before an abortion.
  6. Placing strict limits on free-standing abortion facilities
  7. Placing funding limitations on abortion, e.g. insurance limitations, restricting funding to use to certain facilities or recipients, limiting funding to specific circumstances
  8. Partial-birth abortion bans that would remain in place in case the U.S. Congress repeals the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban,
  9. Enacting abortion bans with Post-Roe activation clauses (trigger bills).
One Example

The Territory of Guam has a legitimate interest in protecting human life.  Moreover, because of the states’ desire to punish violent assaults against pregnant women, and to discourage domestic violence as well as drunk driving, fetal murder laws are a growing trend among state legislatures.  Although fetal murder laws vary among the states, at least thirty seven states today recognize the unlawful killing of an unborn child in at least some circumstances. Among these are six western states in the Ninth Circuit of the United States Courts: Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho,  Nevada, and Washington.  Guam does not currently have any such provision, but we've drafted a bill for your consideration:  Proposed Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2008. 

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