December 2, 2022

Appeals Court Reinstates Abortion Victim Burial Law

photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski / Flickr
On Nov 28, a federal appeals court reinstated an Indiana law requiring the bodies of aborted children to be respectfully buried or cremated rather than treated as medical waste.

In September, a lower court blocked the law by ruling that it violates the religious freedoms of women who do not believe preborn children have the same rights as born ones. The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overrode that decision this week. The Seventh Circuit's decision notes, “Indiana does not require any woman who has obtained an abortion to violate any belief, religious or secular. The cremate-or-bury directive applies only to hospitals and clinics.”

The decision goes on to note that the bodies of animals are sometimes cremated or buried due to legal requirements regarding the disposal of their bodies. "Indiana’s statute about fetal remains therefore need not imply anything about the appropriate characterization of a fetus. At all events, a moral objection to one potential implication of the way medical providers handle fetal remains is some distance from a contention that the state compels any woman to violate her own religious tenets."

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita applauded the decision. “The bodies of unborn babies are more than mere medical waste to be tossed out with trash,” Rokita said in a statement. “They are human beings who deserve the dignity of cremation or burial. The appellate court’s decision is a win for basic decency.”