SALEM, Oregon (LifeSiteNews) — For the second time in less than a month, Oregon Democrats have blocked consideration of a bill that would have guaranteed basic medical care to infants delivered alive after botched abortions.
“Pro-abortion lawmakers in the Oregon Senate voted against bringing a bill to the Senate floor Thursday that would require Oregon medical professionals to provide the same standards of care to babies born alive during failed abortions as newborns delivered under usual circumstances,” noted Oregon Right to Life’s Communication Director Ashley Sadler.
All 18 Senate Democrats voted against SB 1554, the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act,” while all 12 Republicans voted in favor.
“Just as their counterparts in the Oregon House did last month, pro-abortion Senators stood with the extreme abortion lobby and rejected a common-sense piece of legislation to simply ensure that babies who survive abortion attempts are treated with the same standard of care as any other newborn,” said Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson. “Defining required standards of care for abortion survivors should be a common ground position for all reasonable people.”
“This is not a radical proposal. No matter their stance on abortion, 80% of Oregonians support these basic safeguards,” Anderson continued. “It is well past time to enshrine basic protections for abortion survivors here in Oregon, and it’s a shame that pro-abortion lawmakers have once again failed to do so when given the opportunity.”
In late February, Democrat members of the Oregon House voted against a similar bill, HB 4087, which would have required that “When a child is born alive and requires lifesaving treatment to survive, regardless of whether the child’s birth occurred by natural or induced labor, cesarean section or induced abortion, any health care practitioner who is present at the time the child is born alive shall” provide the “same degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child that a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age,” including transportation to a hospital if born elsewhere.
The abortion lobby has long attempted to paint infanticide as an imaginary problem, but the facts show it is very real. “Although the United States fails to record reliable data on abortion survivors, we have estimated, through Canadian government extrapolations, that 1,734 infants are born alive after a failed abortion procedure every year in the United States,” the Abortion Survivors Network says. “In other words, about two out of every 1,000 abortions result in a live birth. After 49.5 years of Roe v Wade, 85,817 babies lived through an abortion procedure.”
As of September 2024, only 18 states have laws requiring medical care for infants delivered alive after attempted abortions, according to FRC, leaving abortionists free to commit infanticide in a majority of the country.
The state of Oregon boasts that abortion is legal up to birth within its borders, with minors as young as 15 not even needing parental consent. Last year, state Democrats launched a “working group” with Planned Parenthood to protect abortion “access” from potential federal encroachment and allocated $7.5 million to Planned Parenthood to make up the difference of Medicaid reimbursements the abortion giant lost from the federal government.
