
Ten lawmakers were blocked from re-election after a record-long walkout in May 2023. The reelection ban was due to Measure 113, an Oregon constitution amendment prohibiting reelection if lawmakers had more than ten unexcused absences. According to POLITICO, they justified the walkout because the legislation infringed on their constitutional rights.
“We were trying to defend the Constitution and Oregon law against those that essentially said, ‘We have the votes, we can do whatever we want,’” he told POLITICO. “We thought it was a principle worth defending, even if it meant that we couldn’t run for re-election.”
Those blocked include Republican Sens. Tim Knopp, Lynn Findley, Bill Hansell, Kim Thatcher, Art Robinson, Suzanne Weber, Daniel Bonham, Cedric Hayden, Dennis Linthicum, and independent Sen. Brian Boquist.
The boycott prevented hundreds of bills from passing, including some of them allowing girls 14 and above to obtain abortions without legal requirements for parental consent. It also included forcing insurance companies to cover transgender surgeries.
It’s no secret that Planned Parenthood targets girls for abortion, and removing parental consent is one way to increase abortion demand among teenagers and children. Especially in cases of abuse and sex trafficking, parental notification and consent protect girls from injury and even death from a dangerous surgical procedure, as well as keeping the preborn child alive.
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Sex traffickers will also use these laws to hide their crimes of raping underage girls. If parental consent laws are in place, it will decrease sex trafficking.
Despite not being able to be reelected, the boycott was only hardly successful on the pro-life front. It led to compromises in several bills, including parental consent for girls under 15 unless the physician finds it’s not in her “best interest.”
Much progress is still needed to safeguard parents’ rights. In the past, Students for Life Action (SFLAction) pushed for a parental consent law in Florida, and it was successfully passed. Law such as this with less compromise will protect more girls and preborn babies.