Author’s Note: I have openly spoken, written, posted, commented and expressed my pro-life views on this platform, and on several other platforms for decades now. I’ve held this belief since I was a 15-year-old student at Notre Dame High School. Life begins at conception. The purposeful termination of life is murder. The law prescribes penalties for people convicted of murder. But for decades, there has been a double standard in the law. Since Roe v. Wade, it has only been murder, if the human being purposely killed has evacuated the birth canal.
At the the same time I have listened to the words of those who are pro-choice since I feel listening to another’s point of view will help me better understand the harsh realities of why abortion is such a divisive issue. Kandit has even published and broadcasted both pro-choice and pro-life points of views.
Many people think I first became acquainted with attorney Peter Sgro when I was the director of communications for Governor Eddie Calvo, who was Peter’s brother-in-law. The truth is I first met Peter when I was that 15-year old student at Notre Dame High School. There was a meeting the Catholic Pro-Life Committee had planned. They invited some students to this meeting. I was the only student, who attended. I had never met Peter before that.
I learned at the start of the meeting that Peter was invited because members of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee at that time wanted to learn and understand laws that are related to abortion. I recall questions being asked of Peter about Roe v. Wade, which the United States Supreme Court decided just over 50 years ago. I also recall a lot of questions about the Belle Arriola law, which became law over 30 years ago. That law, unanimously passed by the Twentieth Guam Legislature, would have been the most stringent anti-abortion statute in the nation. A U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the law; the judges deciding it was unconstitutional. But senators never repealed it, so it has remained on our books, a statute blocked by a singular injunction predicated upon a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Roe v. Wade) that was overturned earlier this year.
I will be candid with you. I do not fully understand the details, complexities and the consequences of all this, because of so many court decisions that have occurred since 1973 when the US Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade to just five moths ago in 2022 when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Then, it was often reported nationally and internationally that no court ever decided that the Texas Heartbeat Act was unconstitutional. If I don’t understand it all, perhaps others don’t as well. And since senators tomorrow will be making their own decisions when they begin debating the Guam Heartbeat Act of 2022, some of them more than likely do not know the details, complexities and the consequences, too.
The best way to understand the intent and purpose of any bill is to openly talk about it with the senator, attorney or anyone who actually wrote the legislation. So I decided to ask Peter to spend a couple hours with me last night to answer questions. We all know he wrote it. There has never been any senator, any other attorney or anyone that has said they wrote it or that they helped Peter in writing it. So here is the transcription of that sit down interview:
Q: Thank you Pete for your willingness to sit down with me tonight. I have several questions. But I want to start by asking you if you can take off your lawyer hat and let’s just talk as if we were talking over breakfast or lunch. I really want our people – myself included – to understand a lot of this. Let me start first by asking you, ‘What are you most concerned about if the legislature does not vote to pass the Guam Heartbeat Act of 2022 or if they don’t even vote on it?’
A: I am most concerned Troy that if they do not vote to pass it or if they don’t even vote on it then some time shortly after the inauguration on January 2, 2023, any woman that has an abortion performed on them or has an induced medication abortion and anyone that assisted them in any way will be guilty of a second degree criminal felony. I feel it is reasonable to ask that when senators who are a parents to a daughter, have nieces or goddaughters, when they are deliberating over all the issues that will be in front of them tomorrow, to ask themselves, would I want any of my family to go to jail?
Q: Are you mentioning the January 2, 2023 inauguration because of the incoming attorney general, Doug Moylan, and his plans to petition for the lifting of the injunction against the Belle Arriola law?
A: Yes. That’s precisely it. Once that law is unveiled, it will make it so that even mothers who seek an abortion can be arrested and sent to jail.
Q: I personally feel that abortion is murder. Why are you concerned if say a woman or anyone helping her have an abortion is guilty of a crime?
A: Primarily it’s a matter of my own personal beliefs and convictions. I do not feel that any woman or anyone helping her have an abortion should face even the slightest risk of spending time at the Department of Corrections. I also do not feel that criminalizing having an abortion or criminalizing the aiding or abetting an abortion will be a meaningful deterrent. It will not significantly save the lives of unborn babies.
Q: So then you must feel that the late Senator Belle Arriola’s law will have some consequences even though it is over 30 years old. Can you explain this to me but in a way that someone like me can understand?
A: The late Senator Belle Arriola’s law has never died. It has been on life support for over 30 years. Attorney General-elect Moylan is doing all he can to save its life and has already started the process to take it off life support. He already knows the procedure and that procedure has never failed before. No court will block our elected attorney general taking the late Senator Belle Arriola’s law off life support. It will become an enforceable law of our island.
Q: It has actually been pretty open that certain people have accused you of being a copy cat and even in one instance your writing was referred to with derogatory words we cannot publish for obvious reasons. How would you respond to them?
A: If I had simply copied and pasted the Texas Heartbeat Act the two of us would not be having this conversation. There would never be such a thing as the Guam Heartbeat Act of 2022. There never would have been pubic hearings, there would never be a committee report, it would never have become possible to be debated by senators tomorrow. It is actually very simple really. I invite anyone to compare the Texas Heartbeat Act and the Guam Heart Act. They are different. I had to write various sections and also not include various sections since it had to be specifically applicable to Guam.
Realistically we do not have the resources that a state like Texas has readily available. I also felt certain terms were vague. I wanted to avoid in the future the likes of Planned Parenthood or the ACLU both having millions of dollars to file lawsuits to challenge the Guam Heartbeat Act. Those organizations are known to file lawsuits just for the sake of delaying anti-abortion laws from becoming effective. Just two months ago after an Arizona state court judge allowed a 50 year-old near-total abortion ban law to no longer be blocked, the President of Planned Parenthood Arizona reacted by saying something like an archaic law will not tell us about our reproductive freedom and how we want to live our lives.
Q: What is an example of what you did differently in writing the Guam Heartbeat Act?
A: If you look at the section of the Texas Heartbeat Act that essentially removes government from enforcing the act, that section is substantially different from the section of the Guam Heartbeat Act. The Texas Heartbeat Act’s removal of government to enforce the act is similar to a general statement. It does cover a lot but I just wanted to be cautious. I wanted that section to be so detailed and specific so that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to later argue the Guam Heartbeat Act is unconstitutional. There are two sections of the Guam Heartbeat Act that lists individually each and every title of all elected government of Guam public officials including government employees, agents of the government and I even added the United States Territory of Guam, the Government of Guam and I even added specifically, the Attorney General of Guam as not having the authority to enforce the act. But I added the Attorney General of Guam for two reasons but the including all the other elected officials there was only one reason. Although there is already a section in the Guam Heartbeat Act that specifically states that a woman that has an abortion after a heartbeat is detected by a sonogram cannot be subject to any civil lawsuits or criminal prosecutions, the exclusion of the Attorney General of Guam in those two sections, strengthens the separate section that a woman that has an abortion cannot be criminally prosecuted. The reason for this is only the Attorney General of Guam has the Organic Act authority to prosecute anyone for a crime. So if the Attorney General of Guam has no authority to enforce the Guam Heartbeat Act, it is impossible for any woman to be prosecuted. That is not the case though if the late Senator Belle Arriola’s law becomes enforceable. If the Guam Heartbeat Act does not get passed, and the Arriola law goes into effect, women who have an abortion may very well be prosecuted, and we don’t want to see that kind of thing happen.
Q: I recall reading awhile ago you making reference to GHURA and comparing it to a private apartment owner to explain why the Texas and Guam Heartbeat Act gives the people the authority to enforce the acts and not the government. Can you use that example again?
A: The Constitution is often misunderstood. For example, if I was your landlord, Troy, and you were renting a a two bedroom and two bathroom apartment from me. One day you came to my office excited and said to me that you had met a really nice couple of African American decent and the wife was just stationed to Guam by the Air Force. You welcomed them to stay with you. I then tell you that you will not have that African American couple stay in my apartment. I am not violating the constitution mandate against racial discrimination.
Now, instead of me being the private landlord, pretend it’s GHURA – a government agency – that is your landlord. You do the exact same thing. If anyone at GHURA tells you no because the couple is of African American decent, then GHURA violates the constitution.
The constitution does not protect private people from private people’s action. The constitution protects private people from government action. So removing all government action in enforcing the Guam Heartbeat Act, it is impossible to win any case in any court based on the act being unconstitutional.
And this is the real and honest reason why opponents of the Guam Heartbeat Act did not want the legislature to have the act on the legislative agenda tomorrow. Because they know that if it passes, there is no chance of ever winning a case challenging it as being unconstitutional.
Q. I have one last question, Pete. We covered the public hearings and we also received a press release sometime just after the Guam Heartbeat Act by a director. In that press release that director disagreed with you and was supporting that the government was in a better position than the people to enforce the act. A pro-choice group continuously justified their position to oppose the Guam Heartbeat Act by claiming it would end up with hundreds of civil lawsuits. How would you respond to that?
A. The section of the Guam Heartbeat Beat Act that gives the power to the people, to private residents of Guam, to enforce the Heartbeat Act is a section I did not completely modify. It is substantially the same as the Texas Heartbeat Act. The population of Texas for 2022 is estimated to be close to 30 million people. Texas is the second largest state in the nation second only to the state of California. The current population of Guam is approximately 172,000 people.
On September 1, 2021 the Texas Heartbeat Act became legally effective. Today is November 30, 2022. In that entire period of time only one civil lawsuit was filed as provided under the Texas Heartbeat Act.
However, most do not even count that one civil lawsuit. The lawsuit was against a Texas doctor who wanted to be sued. He wrote his own op-ed or his own commentary that he sent to the Washington Post. It was published. In his op-ed he wrote that he performed an ultrasound on a woman, that he detected a heartbeat and he also wrote that he then performed an abortion. What he wrote were all the facts required to file a civil lawsuit against him. He obviously could not convince one person in a state with close to 30 million people to sue him. Two disgraced debarred attorneys in two different states were the two plaintiffs that filed the lawsuit against him. This doctor killed a baby then bragged about it to the nation just so he can challenge the law. As for me Troy, he is more disgraceful than the two disbarred attorneys. Our people will not tolerate a doctor that would do what this doctor did.
Last point Troy. On January 1, 2022, it was released that over 10,000 babies’s lives were saved thanks to the Texas Heartbeat Act and the act has never, never been deemed unconstitutional by any court in the nation including the four times it was challenged in the United States Supreme Court.
