Austin, Texas, Dec 9, 2016 / 11:54 am
A regulation in Texas going into effect this month gives mothers and families the right to know about their child's burial, and gives unborn babies who die the opportunity for a respectful burial – regardless of the circumstances of their death.
Kristi Hamrick, spokesperson for Americans United for Life, who helped create the model legislation for the new Texas regulations, told CNA the legislation both prevents unborn infants who died through abortion as being treated as waste, as well as helping families who lost a child through miscarriage or stillbirth to retrieve their infant's body for burial.
"This effort empowers women and informs them of their options," she told CNA. "It does not require anything of the mothers, but it does require that the facility handle the bodies of unborn infants with the same respect we show the remains of other people who die in a medical setting."
The new regulations, proposed earlier this year by the Texas Department of State Health Services, will go into effect Dec. 19. Similar laws have been passed in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio.