The Guam Attorney General's Office has filed a motion with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking a reversal of a Guam District Court decision on an abortion telemedicine case. The AG argues that a preliminary injunction in the case should be reviewed now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

The case involves two Hawaii-based doctors who provide telemedicine abortion service to local patients. They challenged a Guam law that mandates that pre-abortion counseling be provided in-person and in a clinic setting. Chief Judge Frances Tydingco Gatewood last September ordered a preliminary injunction against the requirements.

But Deputy Attorney General James Canto filed a motion for summary reversal with the federal appeals court. He argued that the District Court had relied on Roe v. Wade and a subsidiary case, and now that they've been reversed, so should the injunction.

But the doctor's lawyer, Attorney Vanessa Williams, contends that a reversal is not necessary, telling KUAM News, "They just cant be arbitrarily requiring things of any person and arbitrarily enforcing these laws and that seems to be exactly what's happening here. They're arbitrarily interpreting these laws to require an in-person meeting versus Zoom without any justification. And the government didn't have any evidence or justification when they first brought the claim in District C

ourt and nothing the Supreme Court said in Dobbs is going to change the absence of evidence they had the first time around."

And while the AG argues that they should consider the implications of the Supreme Court ruling, Attorney Williams maintains that this case still won't invoke the Roe reversal.

"Abortion remains legal," she said. "That's not the decision they were appealing. It's not under dispute whether telemedicine medication abortion can be prescribed. The only thing that the Attorney General's Office is continuing to challenge is whether patients, pregnant people, have to receive materials that are printed or provided by Public Health if they have to receive these physically in person."