Ohio judge blocks law requiring dignified burial or cremation of aborted babies

A county judge in southwest Ohio scrapped a law requiring abortion facilities to bury or cremate the remains of aborted babies, according to a court filing from last Thursday. The law put an unnecessary and discriminatory burden on abortion providers, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Alison Hatheway wrote in her ruling.

The ruling came as a result of a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood, the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union, and other pro-abortion advocates against the state. The state legislature passed a bill regulating the disposal of fetal remains in 2020. The governor signed it into law in 2021, but later that year a judge issued a temporary injunction blocking it from taking effect. The law legally required that the remains of aborted babies be humanly disposed of by burial or cremation. It allowed mothers to choose their preferred method of honorable disposition. Under the law, that choice would be passed to the abortionist if the mother offered no opinion. Facilities and providers that refused to comply would be subject to criminal penalties, license revocation, and fines, the law stated.

Jessie Hill, a cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, said the law only served to burden abortion providers and shame women receiving the procedure. Hatheway’s ruling served as a testament to the 2023 state amendment protecting abortion, she said in an ACLU release issued after the Friday order. Lauren Blauvelt, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, described the law as a stigmatizing barrier against abortion procedures that also threatened patient privacy.

How is it discriminatory to give aborted babies proper burials? The state’s constitution’s abortion amendment establishes abortion as a right that may not be discriminated against. Hatheway noted that the contested fetal remains law only applied to abortions but did not regulate miscarriage care or IVF even though all three procedures result in similar fetal remains and embryonic tissue.

Hatheway admitted that the law did not hinder abortions from taking place, but insisted that the dignified disposal requirement would place unnecessary and discriminatory burdens on abortion providers. Abortion facilities would need to cultivate contacts with funeral businesses and get the infrastructure to accommodate long-term storage of human tissue, according to Hatheway. The law placed additional burdens and expenses on abortion providers even though they dispose of the same tissue as other doctors, she wrote.

Pro-life advocates criticized Hatheway’s decision. The least Ohio can do for innocent abortion victims is give them a proper burial, Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis wrote in a statement released the day of the ruling. Gonidakis expected Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to appeal the ruling.

Dig deeper: Read Josh Schumacher’s report on another Ohio judge permanently blocking the state’s pro-life heartbeat law last October.