Texas Now Requires Burial After Abortion

As someone who has had two early-stage miscarriages, I find these laws to be horrible. Unfortunately, I know there are many people who never understand anything unless they experience it themselves.

I can't help but wonder if they will try to claim that either:
a. If you don't have a funeral they won't believe you had a miscarriage
b. If you don't have a funeral, claim you had a miscarriage, and they try to charge you?

With all the range of emotions, the lack of psychological support after (there is basically no professional help after this or after a birth even when PPD is a strong possibility unless you find it on your own and it is near impossible to find anyone covered under insurance at least here in FL), I just feel as though this is another example of how little certain leaders in this country care about women.

nahalwi said:

As someone who has had two early-stage miscarriages, I find these laws to be horrible. Unfortunately, I know there are many people who never understand anything unless they experience it themselves.

I can't help but wonder if they will try to claim that either:
a. If you don't have a funeral they won't believe you had a miscarriage
b. If you don't have a funeral, claim you had a miscarriage, and they try to charge you?

With all the range of emotions, the lack of psychological support after (there is basically no professional help after this or after a birth even when PPD is a strong possibility unless you find it on your own and it is near impossible to find anyone covered under insurance at least here in FL), I just feel as though this is another example of how little certain leaders in this country care about women.

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^What she said. I had a miscarriage at 7 and a half weeks (we didn't discover it till 9 weeks), and while burial was offered, it wasn't mandatory, nor was it anything I wanted. It was bad enough that the hospital called a month afterward my D&C, to "check up on me." Which I thought was sweet, till they started angling to get me to buy a brick for their prayer garden. The fetus was the size of a blueberry, what was there to bury? Fun fact, since I wasn't hemorrhaging, my D&C was not covered at all by insurance. That was another unpleasant surprise afterwards. If someone had required me to bury the tiny bit of tissue, which they were testing to find out why it happened (chromosomal misfire), I think things would have been even more traumatic for me, not to mention expensive. We were lucky and able to carry the next pregnancy to term, so a happy ending after all the bad stuff.

Oh, FFS. Homeless John Does who die on the street aren't offered burial, or even a private cremation. Neither are people who can't afford it. And no parent is required to give a post-born child who dies (or is murdered) a funeral or a burial if the parents don't wish it.

The GOP really does think fetuses are more important than anyone else.

Fetal remains can also be steam disinfected before burial, according to the guideline.

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They mean autoclaved, since laws require biological material to be autoclaved or incinerated prior to disposal (as a health precaution). This would effectively cook the embryo or fetus. And after that, they want to bury it?

Charming.

I think there's more to it. Right now—and if it hasn't changed very recently—Texas abortion reporting only collects demographic information for health statistics. Neither the woman's identity nor the doctor's are allowed by law to be collected for the stats. The DHS has been trying to ram through a regulation to collect personally identifible info despite a law for the same that failed to pass the legislature. This requirement for a funeral could also be a workaround for collecting personal information and, if so, that's a particularly nasty backdoor.

For a lot of Texas legislators, retroactive abortion followed by burial might be a good idea.

caw

Ari Meermans said:

This requirement for a funeral could also be a workaround for collecting personal information and, if so, that's a particularly nasty backdoor.

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Seriously hideous.

The war on women and reproductive rights continues marching right along. Texas has just mandated healthcare facilities that perform abortions must bury or cremate the remains.

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I'm certainly pro-choice, but I don't understand how this is against women's reproductive rights. Could someone please explain?

I must also say I'm not saying this to be challenging. I would like to understand why it is a bad thing.

RightHoJeeves said:

I'm certainly pro-choice, but I don't understand how this is against women's reproductive rights. Could someone please explain?

I must also say I'm not saying this to be challenging. I would like to understand why it is a bad thing.

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From the article:

“I believe it is imperative to establish higher standards that reflect our respect for the sanctity of life,” he said in the email, which The Tribune published in full. “This is why Texas will require clinics and hospitals to bury or cremate human and fetal remains.”

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The bolded is code. It's about making it harder for hospitals to perform abortions. Which is an issue for women.

mccardey said:

The bolded is code. It's about making it harder for hospitals to perform abortions. Which is an issue for women.

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I see. Thanks for the info. That does make sense. Seems a bit like shaming women for having abortions.

RightHoJeeves said:

I see. Thanks for the info. That does make sense. Seems a bit like shaming women for having abortions.

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Yeah. It's been going on for a while, this sort of thing. They find new ways of saying it, but it's still about control and shame.

RightHoJeeves said:

I'm certainly pro-choice, but I don't understand how this is against women's reproductive rights. Could someone please explain?

I must also say I'm not saying this to be challenging. I would like to understand why it is a bad thing.

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Aside from the shaming aspect that mccardey pointed out, I see a few issues:

1. This may mean additional costs for the people getting the abortions. Abortion can already be expensive for a lot of people, especially if they have to travel to find a clinic. Making it difficult or prohibitively expense to get an abortion is a common tactic.

2. This is likely intended at least in part to prevent doctors from using fetal remains for things like stem cell research. I think it's important to note that in the US, there's no obligation to bury or cremate the bodies of born individuals who die. There are laws about the proper disposal or storing of bodies, but donating a body to science is definitely a possibility. A lot of medical schools use cadavers for study. But fetal remains are being held to a totally different standard.

3. There's a history of judging women's reactions in cases of miscarriage, and I don't think it would be a stretch for a prosecutor to use lack of burial/cremation as evidence that a woman had actually given herself an abortion instead of suffering a miscarriage, and women have been prosecuted and even convicted because at-home abortions can run afoul of anything from laws against buying certain medications online to laws against fetal endangerment and child abuse.

I don't think burials or cremation should be required for an aborted fetus, and I think it's a very bad idea to have some registry with identifying information about women who have had abortions. On the other hand, an abortion means ending the life of a human being. I think no good comes from pretending that's not the case.
Abortion may be justified in some cases, and the choice should be left up to the mother, so abortion should remain legal in my opinion.
I'm sure the choice to have an abortion is difficult and painful for most women. No one has the right to judge any mother who makes this choice. But I think it's best to be clear about what abortion is: terminating a human life.

Alvah said:

But I think it's best to be clear about what abortion is: terminating a human life.

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I think it's a bit more complicated than that. The vast majority of abortions are carried out in the very early stages of the pregnancy.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 66 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 92 percent are performed within the first 13 weeks. Only 1.2 percent occur at or after 21 weeks (CDC, 2013).Feb 3, 2014

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You may believe that's terminating a human life, just as other people believe it's a potential human life not developing further. Your views will affect your choices and decisions: they will decide according to their own views and situation.

Ari Meermans said:

This requirement for a funeral could also be a workaround for collecting personal information and, if so, that's a particularly nasty backdoor.

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Definitely. The nasty, suspicious side of my mind thinks that this is a large part of the underlying reason for this law, actually. And with our new political reality in the US, there's no guarantee the justices we have won't uphold this law by the time it works its way up to SCOTUS (assuming it's appealed).

regdog said:

In addition to what mccardey highlighted, there is also the fact that the requirements are completely non-medical. There is no medical procedure performed on men only that has non-medical requirements legislated on to them.

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Imagine if, when a man has a vasectomy, he is required to participate in a ceremony of mourning for all those sperm that will never have a chance of finding their way to an egg and all those possible people that will never have a chance of being conceived because of his surgery. Or when he's prescribed Viagra, he's required to undergo a waiting period, counseling and psychological assessment, and possible registration in a database (because, after all, around 6%-14% of men are rapists, and we should be sure he's not going to use this drug for nefarious purposes, just in case).

Just remember, you'll be allowed to bring a gun to the funeral but not a tampon!

RedRajah said:

Just remember, you'll be allowed to bring a gun to the funeral but not a tampon!

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or a sex toy. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/25/cocks-not-glocks-texas-campus-carry-gun-law-protest

I always wonder what these politicians' position is on ectopic pregnancies. Do they count terminating those as an abortion? Do they think it would be more holy for women to die?

dawinsor said:

I always wonder what these politicians' position is on ectopic pregnancies. Do they count terminating those as an abortion? Do they think it would be more holy for women to die?

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The paranoid cynic in me says "Yes".

dawinsor said:

I always wonder what these politicians' position is on ectopic pregnancies. Do they count terminating those as an abortion? Do they think it would be more holy for women to die?

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Some do. While they're in the minority, there are a surprising number (in the US, at least) of people who oppose abortion for any reason. I assume their rationale (in cases where both mother and "baby" will likely die without an abortion) is that it's God's will or something. Either that or they think allowing abortion exceptions for health reasons reasons is, as Paul Ryan has stated, a slippery slope that will lead to all or most being legal (since carrying a pregnancy to term is, in fact, more dangerous for a woman than having a legal abortion performed by a qualified doctor in a medical environment). Or maybe they're so effing ignorant about pregnancy and women's health that they don't even know about situations where the mother's life is in serious danger without ending the pregnancy.

They certainly don't give a rat's ass about the suffering or hardship some women endure as a consequences of their pregnancies, even when the risk to their lives is relatively small or can be mitigated with medical intervention.

Here's a discussion of reasons why some GOP politicians are against any exceptions (note, it's from a left-leaning news outlet, but the Scott Walker interview mentioned is real).

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/why-some-gopers-want-ban-abortion-without-exceptions

Here is the official GOP position on abortion. No mention is made for exceptions when continuing a pregnancy to term would likely kill the mother and fetus/embryo both, or about situations where one has to choose whether to save the mother or fetus.

This attitude isn't unique to the US. In Ireland, a woman was allowed to die because doctors couldn't or wouldn't perform an abortion on her dying fetus before fatal sepsis set in. Yes, it can happen in modern democracies.

Roxxsmom said:

Imagine if, when a man has a vasectomy, he is required to participate in a ceremony of mourning for all those sperm that will never have a chance of finding their way to an egg and all those possible people that will never have a chance of being conceived because of his surgery.).

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Or, when getting a vasectomy, he has to get a tattoo saying 'vasectomy' and the date, on his arm or some other easily checked place, so when he tells women he meets that he can't get them pregnant, they can check.

Roxxsmom said:

Or when he's prescribed Viagra, he's required to undergo a waiting period, counseling and psychological assessment, and possible registration in a database (because, after all, around 6%-14% of men are rapists, and we should be sure he's not going to use this drug for nefarious purposes, just in case).

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Or a note from any woman he intends to have sex with. Pills to be doled out on an as-needed basis.

In either case, intrusive and of absolutely no medical purpose.

This is just a very strange world. Thanks everyone for taking the time to explain it to me. I try to keep as much perspective on the world as I can. I'm a straight white guy from a pretty well off family, so from time to time I forget not everyone has it so easy and the world just sort of seems like a bit of an amusement park.

dawinsor said:

I always wonder what these politicians' position is on ectopic pregnancies. Do they count terminating those as an abortion? Do they think it would be more holy for women to die?

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Some people think it's reasonable for a woman to literally have to carry a dead fetus inside her until her body expels it naturally, because late-term abortion is apparently a dangerous slippery slope even when the fetus is already dead. So yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if some people are against terminating ectopic pregnancies, too.

Alvah said:

I don't think burials or cremation should be required for an aborted fetus, and I think it's a very bad idea to have some registry with identifying information about women who have had abortions. On the other hand, an abortion means ending the life of a human being. I think no good comes from pretending that's not the case.

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I'm not pretending. I actually don't believe that.

Alvah said:

Abortion may be justified in some cases, and the choice should be left up to the mother, so abortion should remain legal in my opinion.
I'm sure the choice to have an abortion is difficult and painful for most women. No one has the right to judge any mother who makes this choice.

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A woman is a "mother" when she chooses to become one.