A bill requiring clinics that provide abortions and/or women who have had an abortion to cremate or bury aborted fetal tissue passed the Tennessee state House Monday afternoon. It is scheduled for a vote in the Senate Wednesday.
The bill says a pregnant woman who has an abortion “has the right” to determine whether the fetal remains are buried or cremated. Medical facilities will pay for the disposition of remains and can choose to offer cremation or burial or both. But if a clinic does not offer the disposition option picked by the woman, she will be responsible for the final cost of the method she chooses.
The bill’s House sponsor Rep. Tim Rudd (R-Murfreebsoro) projected cremation services costs at $350 and burial at around $150. No state fund is available to help clinics or pregnant women pay for such services, he said. Though, he said, many funeral homes have said they wouldn’t charge for the services. Also, charities “have been set up” to pay for such services, Rudd said, but did not give specifics.
This is the most offensive piece of legislation I’ve heard this year.
Rep. London Lamar (D-Memphis)
“This is the most offensive piece of legislation I’ve heard this year,” said Rep. London Lamar (D-Memphis), during Monday’s floor debate on the bill. “You are forcing women who have potentially been raped and forcing them to bury or cremate that. This is not a pro-life piece of legislation. What you are doing is forcing your legislative power on women who have made the choice.”
However, Rudd said the bill does “not restrict abortion or have anything to do with abortion; this is post-abortion.”
“The way this is now handled — with the [remains] either thrown in the trash or flushed in the toilet — it is appalling,” said Rudd, who stood in front of the House chambers surrounded by nearly a dozen of the bill’s co-sponsors. “Pets and farms animals are treated with more dignity [in state law] but there’s nothing about the dignity of an unborn child.”
Pets and farms animals are treated with more dignity…
Rep. Tim Rudd (R-Murfreesboro)
Rep. Robin Smith (R-Hixson) told lawmakers she’s a former heart transplant nurse and that the way medical waste and fetal remains are treated “it’s very much different.”
The Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood (TAPP) group said the bill exempts abortions in hospitals from these new rules.
“This bill is nothing more than targeted regulation at abortion providers — aimed at closing Planned Parenthood — and it gives extremists a way to make every patient feel ashamed about their decision,” said Francie Hunt, executive director of TAPP said in a statement. “We’re urging our lawmakers to stay out of personal medical decisions and instead find solutions that actually improve health care in Tennessee.”
The Tennessee Right to Life group said it supports the measure because ”the remains of aborted children should be treated with dignity and not as trash or medical waste.”
“Pro-abortion activists will oppose this legislation on the false pretense that it creates an obstacle for women, but in fact, their opposition comes from the refusal to acknowledge the humanity of the unborn child and to thereby treat their bodies with dignity and respect,” reads a statement from the group.
Similar bills have already been passed in Indiana, Utah, and Ohio.
Ohio Gov. Mike Dewine (R) signed that state’s bill in December. The state now mandates aborted fetuses to be disposed of in a “humane manner.”
The new law was slated to go into effect earlier this month. A lawsuit was filed by abortion providers/clinics and the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union to stop the action. In early April, the law was blocked by a judge who argued the rule interferes with a patient’s right to an abortion under Ohio state law.
Lamar correctly noted during the debate Monday that this legislation was blocked by a court. Rudd said it was not and that his bill was modeled after the parts that survived a review by the U.S. Supreme Court. He may have been incorrectly citing the history of similar legislation in Indiana.
Indiana lawmakers passed a similar bill in 2016, signed into law by then-Gov. Mike Pence. The law was challenged soon after. U.S. Supreme Court Justices upheld the part of the law dealing with internment but refused to review a section on whether or not abortion should be illegal in the state.
Similar legislation is being considered now in Florida and Pennsylvania.
In 2019, a pair of Indiana Republicans, Reps. Jackie Walorski and Jim Banks, filed the Dignity for Aborted Children Act. The bill would “would hold abortion providers accountable if they fail to provide for the proper burial or cremation of aborted fetal remains.”
That bill came after law enforcement officials discovered the remains of 2,411 fetuses in Illinois after the death of an Indiana abortion provider in 2019. The remains were found next to a garage and in the trunk of a car belonging to Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, who had worked at Indiana abortion clinics. The remains dated from the years 2000 to 2003.
It was unclear why Klopfer kept the remains or failed to dispose of them properly. No charges were filed because he was deceased. But the event was enough for the Indiana legislators to recommend a federal law.
“Our society cannot tolerate such callous disregard for the sanctity of human life,” Walorski said in a statement in 2019. “As we continue working to defend the unborn, it is critical that we pass this bill to protect the dignity of abortion victims by ensuring their remains are treated with the respect they deserve.”
