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Abortions are protected across the islands and so are the health care workers who perform them — even on women from states that ban the procedure, under a new law signed by Gov. Josh Green on Wednesday.
“I’m a physician,” said Green, who has a daughter and was joined hand in hand by first lady Jaime Green. “Women have a right to choose an abortion. … What this bill means is that we support women.”
Green’s signing of Act 2 — one of two to become law under Green on Wednesday — means that “Hawaii will continue to be a beacon” for abortion rights, said State Sen. Joy A. San Buenaventura, chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
To women coming to Hawaii and health care providers in states that now ban abortions, San Buenaventura said, “e komo mai. Hawaii welcomes you, because today Hawaii has shown that we will stand by our medical providers.”
Local abortion providers now do not not have to fear arrest or extradition to
“aggressive states like Idaho, Wyoming, Texas and all those other states because their residents chose Hawaii for advice and care for their reproductive life choices,” she said.
After signing Act 2, Green was asked how Hawaii will respond to potential criminal charges against island health care workers who perform abortions on residents from states that ban the procedure.
“We’ll reject it out of hand,” he said. “We’ll look at it, but we’ll reject it out of hand.”
A group of abortion opponents demonstrated outside of Green’s office at the state Capitol as he signed Act 2.
Green, a former state senator, said “it doesn’t happen too often” that bills become law just midway through a legislative session.
He was surrounded by a standing-room audience of members of both the House and Senate who applauded Green’s signature on both Act 2 and Act 1.
Act 1 allows island prosecutors to return to the 40-year-old practice of how they charge criminal defendants.
Both bills were passed by the House and Senate because of the urgency to respond to the Hawaii Supreme Court’s so-called “Obrero decision” in September that overturned how defendants are charged with major crimes; and the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overturning a woman’s guarantee to a right to an abortion, which had been ensured in Roe v. Wade in 1973.
Act 1 was the Legislature’s response to the Hawaii Supreme Court’s 3-2 ruling that prosecutors cannot seek other ways to charge defendants with major crimes after a grand jury decides not to issue an indictment.
Instead, Act 1 clarifies that defendants may be charged “through the complaint and preliminary hearing process, indictment by grand jury, or by written information,” returning to procedures that had been in effect before the Supreme Court’s Obrero ruling.
In response to the ruling, the House and Senate wrote that it “invalidated the State’s longstanding practice of charging felony offenders via complaint. This decision led to hundreds of case dismissals across the State involving serious crimes such as murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, robbery, arson, kidnapping, and sexual assault.”
The court’s decision ended the prosecution of Richard Obrero, who was charged with murder Nov. 12, 2019, after he allegedly shot and killed 16-year-old Starsky Willy of Honolulu.
Willy was part of a group of four teens who allegedly harassed Obrero by trespassing on his property and firing BB guns at him and his house on Kula Kolea Drive near Kalihi Valley Homes. The public housing complex abuts Obrero’s property.
Even before he was elected governor, Green said Wednesday that Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm “was in my ear the moment this became an issue back in the fall.”
Alm then said that the Legislature’s response to the Obrero decision holds defendants “accountable and keeps the community safe.”
In a separate issue, Green said that his nominee to lead the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism — Chris Sadayasu — wants to take his confirmation vote to the full 25-member Senate after the Senate Committee on Energy, Economic Development and Tourism last week voted 4-1 against his confirmation.
“He just wants to serve,” Green said. “It’s that simple. … This is not a gentleman that should be facing a difficult vote. … It’s important for people to know that he’s qualified.”
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