Voter's Guide/United States/Abortion

Oregon Expenditures on Abortion Services, Measure 7 (1978)

The Oregon Expenditures on Abortion Services Amendment, also known as Measure 7, was on the November 7, 1978 ballot in Oregon as an initiated constitutional amendment, where it was defeated. The measure would have prohibited any state agency from spending any public money for abortions and from providing any programs or services promoting abortion.

1. Oregon Ballot Measure 43, Parental Notification for a Minor's Abortion (2006)
2. Oregon Expenditures on Abortion Services, Measure 7 (1978)
3. Oregon Limited State Funding of Abortions, Measure 6 (1986)
4. Oregon Measure 106, Ban Public Funds for Abortions Initiative (2018)
5. Oregon Notice to Minor’s Parents Before an Abortion, Measure 10 (1990)
6. Oregon Prohibition of Abortion and Exceptions, Measure 8 (1990)

Abortion in the United States (Ballotpedia)

Free taxpayer-funded abortions? What Oregon's new reproductive health law does (and doesn't) do

By Gordon R. Friedman | The Oregonian/OregonLive

This summer, Gov. Kate Brown signed legislation expanding the reproductive services that insurers must provide if they sell health plans in Oregon. Among those services: abortion.

That pro

Abortion in the United States (Ballotpedia)

vision is one reason House Bill 3391, also called the Reproductive Health Equity Act, passed along totally partisan lines. Not a single Republican in the state House or Senate supported it.

Proponents of the law say it provides valuable health care services for women. The House Democratic Caucus praised it for its guarantee of “comprehensive reproductive health care” for Oregon women with zero out-of-pocket costs.

"I believe that affordable access to reproductive health care shouldn't depend on who you are, where you live, or how much you earn," Rep. Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, said in a statement when the bill passed. "Health care is a basic human right."

Critics pan it for building on Oregon’s already lax restrictions on access to abortion. When the bill passed the Senate, the Republican Caucus in that chamber said the bill “forces Oregonians to fund late-term, sex-sele

Abortion in the United States (Ballotpedia)

ctive abortions.”

"We should be protecting innocent life, and we should be protecting baby girls from being killed simply for being female," Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, said in a statement. "No one should be forced to pay for gendercide against their conscience."

There's no evidence to support Thatcher's claim, given a lack of data. Sex selection techniques like sperm sorting are available at many fertility clinics, but the choice comes before pregnancy, not during.

Oregon Expenditures on Abortion Services, Measure 7; Ballotpedia (1978)

Free taxpayer-funded abortions? What Oregon's new reproductive health law does (and doesn't) do; Gordon R. Friedman, The Oregonian/OregonLive, August 2017