It was 1970, and Gov. John A. Burns was to announce his decision on a bill, with only minutes to go before the deadline. He could sign it, veto it, or simply allow it to pass by abstaining.

It was a truly troubled and moving speech. He’d spent many hours and sleepless nights, he said, agonizing over this bill. As devout Catholics, he and his wife could never consider the action under question, nor could he bring himself to sign the bill. But his final decision, made only minutes earlier, was that he did not have the right to force his personal religious views on others.

So at five minutes before midnight, he announced that he was abstaining — and with those words, Hawaii became the first state in the union to legalize abortion.

Hawaii can be proud of a governor who truly understood and appreciated then (better than many governors do now) both the letter and the spirit of the American Constitution.

Jean S. Gochros

Kahala

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