Tim Rohr
PO Box 9001, Agat, GU 96928
October 8, 2013
VIA EMAIL
TO: ALL SENATORS OF THE 32nd GUAM LEGISLATURE
RE: BILLS 191-32 AND 193-32
Dear Senators:
I write to oppose Bill 191-32 and support Bill 193-32.
In a letter to Honorable Vicente C Pangelinan dated October 7, 2013, and forwarded to the members of the Legislature, Anita P. Arriola saw fit to single me out in her testimony opposing Bills 191-32 and 193-32. Because Arriola personally names me I consider myself at liberty to respond to her testimony in my own.
1. Arriola addresses her written testimony opposing these bills to “Honorable Vicente C. Pangelinan, Speaker, 32nd Guam Legislature.”
FACT: Though a former speaker, and entitled to be addressed informally as “speaker”, Senator Pangelinan is neither Speaker of the 32nd Guam Legislature - as he is addressed in this letter, nor is he chairman of the oversight committee to which both of these bills have been referred. That Arriola addresses Pangelinan and not the Chair, and Pangelinan forwards without comment, is an indication that she considers Pangelinan the go-to senator when it comes to opposing pro-life measures.
2. Arriola submits her testimony on her law firm’s letterhead, giving the impression that she is representing her usual clients (Guam’s abortionists).
FACT: She is not. Arriola signs the letter only for herself. Despite the letterhead, Arriola is not acting in the capacity of an attorney but a private citizen, and thus, throughout this letter, will not be addressed as “Attorney Arriola.”
3. Arriola writes: “Bills 191-32 and 193-32, which would delete section 4, undermine the purpose and intent of the law.”
FACT: While Bill 191-32 would delete section 4. Bill 193-32 DOES NOT delete section 4 as Arriola claims, but ONLY deletes the language in the section which subjects the printed materials to the rule-making process of the Administrative Adjudication Law (AAL).
4. Arriola opines: “By deleting section 4 of P.L. 31-235, Bills 191-32 and 193-32 eliminate the submission of full and accurate information....to be considered by DPHSS in producing the printed materials and checklist certification.”
FACT: As already noted, Bill 193-32 DOES NOT delete section 4 of P.L 31-235 and leaves in place the requirement for the printed materials and checklist certification to be approved by DPHSS.
5. Arriola claims: “...only one side of the issue - the materials produced by Tim Rohr - will be considered and utilized.”
FACT: The materials were NOT produced by Tim Rohr, but by the State of Louisiana. Permission to copy the text of that state’s information booklet was granted by the Louisiana DPHSS; and a license to reproduce the medical illustrations has been negotiated with the certified medical illustrator. The parts of the booklet relevant to Guam and the checklist certification were written by an attorney who is in personal communication with the Director of the Guam DPHSS. (NOTE: The copyright license for the medical illustrations will be privately purchased for the Government of Guam. GovGuam will own the license.)
6. Arriola continues: “...since when does the Guam Legislature delegate the determination of public policy to a private individual, Tim Rohr, who has a well-known religious bias on the issue of informed consent?”
FACT: As already noted, no “determination of public policy” has been delegated to Tim Rohr. And as for the supposed “well-known religious bias”, I challenge Arriola to find anywhere in my testimonies, or on the Esperansa website, or any written communication of any kind coming from me, any reference to anything religious in regards to “the issue of informed consent.” In fact, assuming Arriola knows that I am a Catholic, if I had any religious bias at all, I would favor abortion as she does, given that a recent Washington Post and ABC poll shows that 55% of U.S. Catholics favor legalized abortion. Shameful, but true. If anything, Tim Rohr is biased AGAINST the majority of Catholics.
7. Arriola conjectures: “Bills 191-32 and 193-32 were ostensibly introduced because they would save DPHSS some money.”
FACT: While we will not conjecture as to why Senator Aguon introduced Bill 191-32, Rodriguez’ Bill 193-32 was introduced because seven senators, upon the passage of Bill 52-31, signed a statement stating they would support an amendment deleting the provision from section 4 requiring the printed materials to be subjected to the rule-making process of the AAL should the Attorney General opine that the printed materials do not constitute a rule. The Attorney General has thus opined, and Senator Rodriguez has therefore proceeded with the introduction of Bill 193-32.
8. Arriola, though she errantly laments the delegation “of public policy to a private individual” (Tim Rohr), nevertheless, as a “private individual” herself, submits her own draft of a the checklist certification “as an alternative to the one produced by Rohr.”
FACT: Again, “Rohr” did not produce it, nor is there anything of record showing that I did. Arriola is encouraged to give the Director of Public Health a call to get the facts straight about the origins of the checklist. (Something, one would think, that a person of Arriola’s professional stature would have already done.)
9. Arriola continues: “If the Legislature is concerned about cost, it should be concerned about the 17 pages produced by Rohr which must be made available to all physicians in Guam and must also be translated in other languages as required by P.L 31-235, Section 2(c) (at a minimum, Chamorro, Japanese and Korean).”
FACTS:
a) The law DOES NOT require the printed materials “be made available to all physicians in Guam.” As per Section 2(b), the law only requires that the printed materials be made available to the woman “upon whom the abortion is to be performed or induced.” It should be obvious that if a physician does not perform abortions, he or she does not need the printed materials. In fact, according to Guam Medical Records, there are only two clinics on Guam which perform abortions, and thus, probably only two abortionists.
b) In regard to “cost”, Section 2(d) requires the “purchase” of these materials by the “physician or qualified person...at such cost as reasonably determined by the Department.”
c) The law DOES NOT state that the printed materials “must also be translated in other languages.” Section 2(c) states only that the “Department shall cause to be published printed materials in English”, and goes on to state: “and any other culturally sensitive languages which the Department deems appropriate...” Obviously, if the Department does not deem it appropriate, then the Department is under no obligation to print the materials in other languages. And, if the Department does deem it appropriate, the printed booklet with the medical illustrations can simply be accompanied by a copy of the translation of the text for which no copyright permissions are needed. The translation and printing costs can be recouped by charging, as per Section 2(d), the “physician or qualified person” “a cost as reasonably determined by the Department.”
d) Arriola’s recommends that these other languages be “at a minimum, Chamorro, Japanese and Korean”. As per the 2012 abortion statistics, Japanese account for 0% of the number of abortions and Koreans account for only 8%, numbers hardly justifying the need for the Department to fret over a separate publication in these languages. As regards Chamorro, the 2012 abortion report shows that Chamorros accounted for 64% of reported abortions. (A fact, by the way, that Arriola and other Chamorros, given the exponential depletion of the race, should lament rather than promote.) However, is there any serious doubt that Chamorro girls and women of child-bearing age DO NOT understand English? The very fact that island leaders are clamoring for the preservation of the Chamorro language through mandatory classroom instruction should answer that question.
10. Arriola states (again): “It was clearly the intent of the Legislature in enacting P.L. 31-235 to allow for public participation in the development of printed materials and the checklist certification required to provide informed consent for women.”
FACT: No. It was clearly the intent of SOME in the Legislature (and probably with “some external guidance”) to derail the implementation of P.L 31-235 for as long as possible or derail it altogether. The Attorney General has opined that “both the printed materials and checklist do not meet the definition of a rule in the AAL,” and seven incumbent senators have committed, in writing, their intent to support a measure to delete the requirement should the Attorney General so opine. The Attorney General has “so opined.”
11. Arriola concludes: “Bills 191-32 and 193-32 undermine that intent and allow a one-sided, biased version of materials to be forced upon the women of Guam.
FACT: Only Senator Frank Aguon’s bill, Bill 191-32, could possibly allow for a “biased version of materials to be forced upon the women of Guam”, because his bill deletes the requirement for the materials to be approved by “the Department” (DPHSS). Senator Rodriguez’ Bill 193-32, preserves that requirement and rightly gives the duty of approval to DPHSS where it belongs.
*****
Arriola attaches her version of a checklist certification to her testimony, a version which provides, like her testimony, several opportunities for correction. We will address only a few.
1. In her description of the the Dilation and Evacuation abortion procedure, Arriola notes the insertion of osmotic dilators into the patient’s cervix which begins “the process of slow and gentle dilation of the cervix.” The use of “gentle” is an example of bias, giving the impression that the procedure is possibly painless. Whether or not the patient experiences the artificial dilation of her cervix as “gentle” is something only the patient can determine, not Arriola.
2. Arriola further describes the same abortion procedure as involving the “removal of the pregnancy with forceps.” Medical dictionaries define “pregnancy” as a period or state from conception to birth. A “period or state” is not removed “with forceps.” What is removed is a dismembered fetus. Arriola neglects to mention this little fact, but she still could have gotten away with it by using more common innocuous terms such as “the products of pregnancy” or “fetal tissue”.
3. Interestingly, Arriola only describes abortion procedures up through the second trimester, neglecting to provide information about third trimester abortion procedures such as Intra-Amniotic Instillations, otherwise known as “saline abortions”, a procedure employed on Guam (see Guam Medical Records). Just so you know, the informational booklet now being reviewed by DPHSS has the following description: “Solutions of hypertonic urea (or saline) and a prostaglandin are instilled into the amniotic sac after partial removal of the amniotic fluid. The hypertonic urea (or saline) kills the fetus, and prostaglandin helps ensure expulsion.” As one can see, the language used in the booklet is simply medical language. (Of course, the description does not describe how the fetus actually dies. If you are interested in knowing, feel free to see at www.esperansa.org.)
4. Arriola’s neglect of a description of late term abortion procedures and their risks is notable since “risks increase with every week of gestation”, a fact she mentions but gives no information about, perhaps because at that stage it is very difficult to hide what is actually being “removed”.
5. Arriola states: “There is approximately 1 death for every 167,000 women who have legal abortions and these rare deaths are usually of adverse reactions to anesthesia, heart attacks, or uncontrollable bleeding. The death rate for a woman carrying to term is about 10 times greater.”
Arriola cites no source for these statistics. Yet she wants us to include them in her version of the checklist. However, in light of Arriola's claims, it behooves us to consider an authentic study on those numbers: Bartlett, L. A. et al. (2004). Risk Factors for Legal Induced Abortion-Related Mortality in the United States. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 103 (4), 729–37. Using national U.S. data spanning the years from 1988 to 1997, Bartlett and colleagues reported the relative risk of mortality was 14.7 per 100,000 at 13–15 weeks of gestation, 29.5 at 16-20 weeks, and 76.6 at or after 21 weeks.
Arriola’s undocumented claim that there is only one abortion-related death in every 167,000 abortions comes out to 0.59 abortions per 100,000, a figure that is staggeringly different when compared to the Bartlett study which puts the total number of abortion-related deaths at 120.8 per 100,000 (14.7 + 29.5 + 76.6). Run that through a percent-change calculator and you get a difference of 20,374.58%.
Senators, I urge you to vote yes on Bill 193-32. CPS recently (on 9/21/12) advised that it has a waiting list of at least ten persons waiting to adopt. CPS also advised that they haven’t had a child available for adoption in 5 years. Over the course of the last 5 years, Guam has aborted 1,416 unborn children, 58% of whom could have been young Chamorros (Guam Medical Records 2008-2012). And at least ten of them could have had loving parents. Instead, their remains are in the landfill.
While you deliberate, keep in mind, that on this beautiful family-friendly island of Guam, the life of an unborn child is terminated every 1.28 days while hopeful adoptive parents wait and wait.
Respectfully,
Tim Rohr
Resident of Guam
ATTACHMENTS:
Letter to oppose Bills 191-32 and 193-32 from Anita P. Arriola addressed to Honorable Vicente C. Pangelinan and Arriola’s version of an informed consent checklist
Bill 191-32
Bill 192-32
Letter from Office of the Attorney General, dated May 22, 2013, stating “both the printed materials and the checklist do not meet the definition of a rule in the AAL.
Letter to Louisiana Department of Health requesting permission to reprint certain portions of its Women’s Right to Know Booklet
Email from Louisiana Department of Health granting permission to reprint.
Freedom of Information Act Request to Guam Memorial Hospital for abortion reports for calendar year 2012 and Abortion Report.
Abortion-Related Deaths Compared to Childbirth-Related Deaths, Priscilla K. Coleman, Ph.D., World Expert Consortium for Abortion Research and Education