Abortion Charge Dropped by Guam

AGANA, Guam — Prosecutors on Monday dropped charges against an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer accused of violating the nation’s most restrictive abortion law.

Atty. Gen. Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson said she dropped the charges against Janet Benshoof partly because of a lawsuit that she considers a better test of the new abortion law than Benshoof’s case.

Benshoof, director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, was arrested on March 21 on a charge of solicitation to commit abortion. She had publicly encouraged women seeking abortions to have them performed in Hawaii.

The law, which has been suspended by a restraining order pending a hearing on the lawsuit, prohibits abortion except when pregnancy endangers the life of the mother.