Fetal tissue burial: whatever happened with the proposed Texas rules?

Texas abortion rights activists had much to celebrate this year –namely the U.S. Supreme Court’s HB2 decision. But that joy was diminished when Texas Governor Greg Abbot suggested new fetal tissue burial codes would be enforced by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services on July 1, 2016 in the Texas Register. These proposed codes are not “laws” per se, but rather would make up the administrative guidelines issued by the Texas Department of Health Services –guidelines that medical facilities and practitioners would be forced to abide. The newly proposed codes specifically target abortion providers (the overwhelmed but powerful handful that remain) and require that fetal tissue, whether miscarried or aborted, regardless of gestational age, be interred or cremated. During a particularly painful period, I passed a thick, clotty glob of… Read more »