A new pro-abortion bill in Oregon has pro-life advocates up in arms and urging pro-life Oregonians to contact their members of the state legislature. And the state House today approved the measure.
Oregon House Democrats voted to further erode parents’ rights in Oregon by passing House Bill 2758, which would allow an enrollee on a health insurance plan to demand that the explanation of benefits not be sent to the primary holder of the insurance policy. This would allow a 15 year old child to obtain an abortion without her parents’ knowledge even though it is paid for by her parents’ insurance policy.
“Involvement in their child’s life is the most important tool parents have to protect their children from abuse,” said Gayle Atteberry, Executive Director of Oregon Right to Life. “But the abortion giant Planned Parenthood has managed to get every Democrat in the House to help them do secret abortions paid for by unknowing parents, endangering children in Oregon.”
Every Republican member of the State House of Representatives opposed HB 2758, citing some of the unintended consequences of the bill. Representative Cedric Hayden carried a minority report for the Republican Caucus.
Representative Jodi Hack (R-Salem) related a personal story when as a coach, one of her student athletes was in an abusive sexual relationship that was only prevented when her parents intervened after they received the explanation of benefits that arrived after she received treatment for an STD:
“This was a good family, and a good young woman who was in a bad situation, so who’s to say if that [Explanation of Benefits] had not gone home and they had not been given the opportunity to intervene, what would have happened to her life,” said Representative Hack. “[HB 2758 is] saying that we [parents] are not worthy of having a say in what happens in medical choices for our children. That is absolutely ludicrous to me.”
Gayle Atteberry, Oregon Right to Life’s executive director, said: “It’s not enough for Oregon’s abortion industry that a girl can get an abortion without her parents’ knowledge or consent. Now they want her parents to pay for her secret abortion!”
“Not only would this bill further weaken minors from receiving parental guidance in moments of a life-changing decision,” Atteberry continued, “but this bill creates a big opportunity for sex abusers to cover up their crimes. If made law, perpetrators of sexual crimes would have no fear of being reported as they coerce their young victims into accessing an abortion under her parents’ health insurance. They will have free reign to dispose of the ultimate evidence of their sexual crime: an innocent preborn child.”
ACTION: Contact members of the state legislature to oppose the bill.
