Defending Life 2008
Table of Contents
Oregon 
# 50 Most Pro-life State
Overview
Oregon has a dismal record of failing to protect women, the unborn, the sick, and the dying. For example, Oregon does not mandate informed consent or parental involvement for abortion, does not recognize an unborn child as a potential victim of homicide or assault, and does not limit destructive embryo research or human cloning. Most disturbing is Oregon's law permitting physician-assisted suicide.
Abortion and Protection of the Unborn and Newly Born
Overall Assessment: Dangerous
Women's Health & Safety
- Oregon does not provide even rudimentary protection for women considering abortions. The state does not have an informed consent law, a parental involvement law for minors seeking abortions, abortion clinic regulations, ultrasound requirements, or a prohibition on anyone other than a licensed physician performing an abortion.
- Oregon taxpayers fund abortions for women eligible for state medical assistance for general care.
- Oregon has established the Sexual Assault Victims' Emergency Medical Response Fund, which pays for medical assessments and the provision of emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault.
- Health plans that provide prescription coverage must also cover prescription contraceptives. Religious employers may refuse coverage if their primary purpose is the inculcation of religious values; primarily employ and serve people with the same values; and are nonprofit entities under federal law.
- Hospitals must provide sexual assault victims with information about and access to emergency contraception. Further, the state department of justice must pay for medical assessments of sexual assault victims, including the provision of emergency contraception and the prescription for emergency contraception to minors.
Protection for the Unborn & Newly Born
- Current Oregon law does not recognize an unborn child as a potential victim of homicide or assault.
- Oregon does not require that an infant who survives an abortion be given appropriate, potentially lifesaving medical care.
- Oregon has a "Baby Moses" law, establishing a safe haven for mothers to legally leave their infants at designated places and ensuring that the infants receive appropriate care and protection.
Bioethics Laws
Overall Assessment: Dangerous
- Oregon maintains no laws regarding destructive embryo research or human cloning.
- Oregon requires that physicians perform artificial insemination procedures.
- Oregon allows health insurance companies to ask for genetic testing, but prohibits discrimination in payment for hospital or medical expenses based on the results of such testing.
End of Life Laws
Overall Assessment: Dangerous
- Oregon permits physician-assisted suicide under statutorily specified circumstances.
- In cases involving life-sustaining treatment and a healthcare provider's refusal to provide that treatment, Oregon law offers no effective protection for a patient's wishes as expressed through his/her advance directive. Moreover, there is no duty to provide lifesustaining treatments while a patient waits for transfer to a facility willing to comply with the patient's wishes.
Healthcare Rights of Conscience Laws
Overall Assessment: Dangerous
Participation in Abortion:
- A physician is not required to participate in or give advice about abortion if he or she discloses this election to the patient.
- A hospital employee or medical staff member is not required to participate in abortions if he or she has notified the hospital of this election.
- A private hospital is not required to admit a woman for an abortion.
- Department of Human Services employees who object in writing may refuse to offer family planning and birth control services.
Participation in Research Harmful to Human Life:
- Oregon currently provides no protection for the rights of healthcare providers to conscientiously object to participation in human cloning, destructive embryo research, or other forms of immoral medical research.
What Happened in 2007
- Oregon enacted a measure requiring health plans that provide prescription coverage to also cover prescription contraceptives. Religious employers may refuse coverage if their primary purpose is the inculcation of religious values; primarily employ and serve people with the same values; and are nonprofit entities under federal law.
- In addition, the measure requires hospitals to provide sexual assault victims with information about and access to emergency contraception. Further, the state department of justice must now pay for medical assessments of sexual assault victims, including the provision of emergency contraception and the prescription for emergency contraception' to minors.
- Oregon considered a measure directly attacking the mission of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). The measure would have established a study committee to "review" the policies and procedures of state CPCs. The alleged impetus for the bill was that CPCs are providing women with so-called "misleading" and/or "false" information.
- Oregon also considered measures regulating abortion facilities; relating to informed consent and information about fetal pain; requiring parental notice; and protecting unborn victims of violence.
- On the bioethics front, the state considered measures banning cloning, as well as a measure promoting destructive embryo research. It also considered a measure requiring insurance coverage of infertility treatments.
- In addition, Oregon considered measures related to advance directives.
Future Opportunities
(Note: Oregon will not hold a regular legislative sesion in 2008.)
- Oregon lags far behind other states in ensuring that women considering abortion receive accurate and complete information about abortion, the risks of abortion, alternatives to abortion, and the availability of public assistance to help women who want to carry their pregnancies to term.
- Oregon does not protect the health and well-being of minors by requiring parental involvement before an abortion is performed on a minor.
- Oregon does not license and regulate abortion clinics, thereby failing to ensure that minimum health and safety standards are met.
- Oregon does not protect the unborn or newly born by recognizing an unborn child as a potential victim of crime or requiring that infants who survive abortions be given appropriate care.
- Oregon does not ban human cloning or destructive embryo research.
- Because Oregon does not protect the wishes of patients as expressed in their advance directives, patients are vulnerable to the wishes of physicians and hospitals unless the state enacts a statute mandating transfer and requiring life-sustaining treatment pending transfer (and without a time limit).
- Oregon provides no protection for healthcare providers to conscientiously object to participation in procedures other than abortion, such as destructive embryo research or physician-assisted suicide.
