Texas’ proposed rules requiring the cremation or burial of fetal remains will take effect Dec. 19, according to state health officials.
Despite intense outcry from the medical community and reproductive rights advocates, the state will prohibit hospitals, abortion clinics and other health care facilities from disposing of fetal remains in sanitary landfills, instead allowing only cremation or interment of all remains — regardless of the period of gestation.
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Proposed at the direction of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the health commission had argued the rules would result in “enhanced protection of the health and safety of the public.” Abbott said in a fundraising email that the rules were proposed because he doesn’t believe fetal remains should be “treated like medical waste and disposed of in landfills.”
But the new requirement prompted outrage from the reproductive rights community, which accused state leaders of pushing unnecessary regulations. Women who experienced miscarriages or lost children in utero questioned why the state would make their situations more difficult by enacting the requirements. And medical providers — including the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Hospital Association — had also raised concerns about who would bear the costs associated with cremation or burial — a figure that can reach several thousand dollars in each case.
In response to those concerns, health officials indicated that health care facilities — and not patients — will be responsible for the disposal of fetal remains and related costs. They also wrote that those costs would be “offset by the elimination of some current methods of disposition.”
See here, here, and here for the background. If you think it’s a coincidence that this was proposed within a few weeks of the SCOTUS ruling striking down HB2, I’ve got a carload of diplomas from Trump University to sell you. Let’s get that next lawsuit going so we can maybe have an injunction in place before this atrocity can take effect. (And if you want to help facilitate that, a donation to the Center for Reproductive Rights would be a fine way to do so.) The Austin Chronicle has more.
I wonder how much the funeral directors’ lobby paid for this little gem? Let’s just call this what it really is, more harassment of the baby killing women. Texas can’t stop them from committing their evil deeds, but they can punish them, monetarily. Medical waste already gets burned, so separately cremating each fetus is just designed to run up the bill, and rub the women’s noses in their immoral behavior.
I hate that the taxpayers will have to spend money defending this, but, well, this needs to be litigated. Just like the sonogram requirement, this has absolutely nothing to do with women’s health, safety, or whatever, and has everything to do with general harassment.