Texas Law Requiring Burial or Cremation after Abortion and Miscarriage Another Unnecessary Burden

Both houses of the Texas legislature passed Senate bill 8 on Monday requiring any health care facility, hospitals, or abortion clinic, to bury or cremate fetal remains from an abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth. It would also prohibit fetal tissue donation for the purposes of medical research, and ban abortion in the 2nd trimester. Lawmakers and anti-abortion advocates are using the particular mandate on fetal tissue disposal as a strategy to stigmatize and guilt women who have an abortion.

Texas lawmakers attempted to pass similar legislation in December but a federal judge granted a temporary reprieve as the law as too vague and caused undue burden. Nevertheless, Texas lawmakers are going ahead with the bill.

Stephie and her husband are one example of how this legislation affects women. She wrote an article in Rewire, telling her story about her pregnancy loss. She said while the experience was devastating, it opened her eyes to the anti-abortion tactics which seek to shame women. She said that the bill attempts to “re-contextualize” her experience into anti-abortion propaganda but forcing women to treat a fetus from a miscarriage, still birth, or abortion at any stage as a fully formed baby that must be buried or cremated. 

She said that her “miscarriage reaffirmed [her] conviction that so-called pro-life rhetoric is antithetical to supporting life. The very same anti-choice policies that antagonize women who choose to abort their pregnancies prey on those who pray for healthy pregnancies too.”

Read more about her story HERE