Oregon Democrat supermajority rejects bill to provide care for abortion survivors

(Oregon Right to Life) Pro-abortion Oregon lawmakers voted against bringing a bill to the House floor Monday that would ensure that babies born alive during failed abortions are treated with the same standards of care as newborns delivered under usual circumstances.

Representative Court Boice made a motion during a February 16th House floor session to bring HB 4087, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, to the full House out of the Committee on Health Care. The move came after Rep. Boice introduced Oregon abortion survivor Amy Miles to the House during courtesies at the beginning of the session. Amy Miles was born alive in the 1980s at 28 weeks in Ashland, Oregon, during an abortion procedure intended to end her life. Today, she is a wife and mother, and she represents and speaks out for the many babies who survive abortions every year. 

Lawmakers voted on the motion on Monday, with 34 Democrats voting against the bill and 22 Republicans voting in favor. Included in those voting against the bill was Rep. Cyrus Javadi, a former Republican who became a Democrat last year and renounced his pro-life affiliation. Rep. Javadi is the Representative for Amy Miles’ district and had previously sponsored the same legislation. 

Lacking a majority vote, the bill failed to advance out of committee.

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“It is tragic that Oregon’s current Democratic lawmakers are so committed to their party’s radical abortion agenda that they will not, at the very minimum, take action to ensure that babies who survive abortion attempts are treated with the same standard of care as any other newborn,” Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson said. “Defining required standards of care for abortion survivors should be a common ground position for all reasonable people, even if they do not identify themselves as pro-life.”

“Oregon remains one of the most radical states on the issue of abortion, allowing elective procedures up to the moment of birth for any reason,” Anderson continued. “It is well past time to enshrine basic protections for our most vulnerable, and it is a shame that the Democratic majority will not vote in favor of basic safeguards that are supported by 80% of Oregonians, no matter their stance on abortion.”

The Born Alive Infants Protection Act would have required Oregon medical professionals to apply the same standards of care for babies born alive during abortion procedures as they would for any other newborns. 

Pro-life advocates have long sought to create more robust legal protections for babies who survive abortions. While the 2002 federal Born-Alive Protection Act defines infants who survive abortion as “persons,” the law does not specify standards of care. There are currently only nine states with born-alive infant reporting, and those states reported 275 cases of babies born alive during abortions between 2018 and 2024. Using extrapolated data based on information from Canada, and adjusting for a lack of consistent reporting requirements in the U.S., the Abortion Survivors Network estimates that an average of over 1,700 babies were born alive in America during failed abortions over a seven year span from 2014 through 2020. Infanticide is illegal, but a lack of explicit standards of care for abortion survivors leaves them vulnerable to medical neglect. Witness statements from nurses and undercover recorded remarks from a late-term abortion doctor further indicate that fatal neglect has occurred at least in some cases.