SALEM, Ore. — Representative Cyrus Javadi (D-Astoria) voted alongside pro-abortion Oregon lawmakers Monday, blocking a motion to bring a bill to the House floor that would ensure that babies born alive during failed abortions receive the same standards of care as newborns delivered under usual circumstances. Rep. Javadi previously sponsored the same bill before changing his party affiliation late last year.
Rep. Javadi’s vote came after Representative Court Boice made a motion during a Monday hearing to bring HB 4087, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, out of the House Committee on Health Care. Rep. Boice previously introduced Oregon abortion survivor Amy Miles to the House during courtesies at the beginning of the hearing. Amy Miles was born alive 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 babies who survive abortions every year.
As a resident of Astoria, Amy Miles is a constituent of Rep. Javadi.
“Representative Javadi changed his party affiliation late last year and tragically disavowed his pro-life principles,” said Oregon Right to Life Executive Director, Lois Anderson. “Yesterday, I was saddened to see that he abandoned his own constituent, Amy Miles – who was born alive at 28 weeks during an abortion procedure and currently speaks out on behalf of other abortion survivors – to instead align himself with the abortion lobby.”
On Monday, Javadi joined 33 other Democrats in voting against bringing the Born Alive Infants Protection Act onto the House floor, in opposition to the 22 Republicans who voted in favor. Lacking majority approval, the bill failed to move out of committee.
“Rep. Javadi once held Oregon Right to Life PAC’s endorsement. And it wasn’t long ago that he stood on the House floor and actually sponsored Born Alive Infants Protection legislation,” Anderson said. “His flip-flopping rejection of this widely-supported, common sense bill is yet another disappointing action from a lawmaker whose constituents once trusted him to represent pro-life values. I truly hope that Javadi will return to his formerly held convictions, and am sorry to see him act in such opposition to them.”
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. Recent polling shows that 80% of Oregonians would support these protections.
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.
