Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, the following definitions shall apply to this article:
(a) Vital Statistics means records of birth, death, fetal death, adoption, marriage, divorce and data related thereto.

(b) System of vital statistics includes the registration, collection, preservation, amendment and certification of vital statistics records and activities related thereto, including the tabulation, analysis and publication of statistical data derived from such records.

(c) Filing means the presentation of a certificate, report or other record provided for in this article of a birth, death, fetal death, adoption,

(d) Registration means the acceptance by the Office of Vital Statistics and the incorporation in its official records of certificates, reports or other records provided for in this article, of births, deaths, fetal deaths, adoptions, llegitimation marriages or divorces.

(e) Live birth means the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of human conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy, which, after such expulsion or extraction, breathes or shows any other evidence of life such as beating of umbilical cord [heart] or definite movement of the voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached.

(f) Fetal death means death prior to the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of human conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy; the death is indicated by the fact that after such expulsion or extraction the fetus does not breathe or show any other evidence of life such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles.

(g) Dead body means a lifeless human body or parts of such body or bones thereof from the state of which it reasonably may be concluded that death recently occurred.

(h) Marriage means the legal union between two persons without regard to gender. The legality of the union
may be established by civil or religious regulations, as recognized by the laws of Guam.

(i) Divorce or annulment means the final legal dissolution of a marriage, void or otherwise, that is, the separation of spouses by a judicial decree which confers on the parties the right to remarriage, according to the laws of Guam.

(j) Physician means a person authorized or licensed to practice the healing art, pursuant to the laws of Guam.

(k) Attendant at birth means the physician, midwife, nurse or other person present and assisting in the delivery of a newborn.

(l) Institution means any establishment, public or private, which provides in-patient medical, surgical or diagnostic care or treatment or nursing, custodial or domiciliary care to two (2) or more unrelated individuals, or to which persons are committed by law.

(m) Delayed registration of birth means the registration of a person’s non-recorded birth after the sixth (6th) year following birth.

(n) Abortion means the purposeful termination of a human pregnancy after implantation of a fertilized ovum, by any person, including the pregnant woman herself, with the intention other than to necessarily produce a live birth or to remove a dead unborn fetus.

SOURCE: Added by P.L. 22-130:2 (May 31, 1994). Subsections (h)
and (i) amended by P.L. 33-065:3 (Aug. 25, 2015).

2013 NOTE: In maintaining the general codification scheme of the GCA the Compiler changed the hierarchy of subsections beginning with “”Numbers”” to “”Lowercase Letters.””