Texas Leaders Sink to New Low, Push Measure That Would Require Fetal Tissue to Be Buried or Cremated

TEXAS -(ENEWSPF)–July 7, 2016.   Just four days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down two Texas abortion restrictions, Texas leaders are pushing a measure that would require abortion providers to cremate or bury fetal tissue, further placing a financial burden on those seeking abortion.

“This is a new low for our state’s leaders who are committed to making abortion inaccessible and shaming Texans who have abortions,” Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas said. “A person who needs an abortion will unfairly bear the burden of these new regulations and every abortion patient deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

“This is a frightening preview of the avalanche of anti-abortion legislation that Texas lawmakers will propose next session,” Busby said. “Enraged by the Supreme Court’s smack down of Texas anti-choice lawmakers’ false reasons for pushing additional burdens to abortion access, our state’s decision makers couldn’t even go four days without coming up with a new tactic that puts an unnecessary regulation on abortion providers and increases the burdens and costs for people seeking abortion. Once more, the state has punished some of our most vulnerable, those women struggling the most to feed their children and provide for their families. Texas lawmakers should be focused on helping the children already born by providing a quality education, reducing our abysmal rates of child poverty and our highest-in-the-nation uninsured population.”

The Health and Human Services Commission proposed the new rule on July 1, 2016, sneaking it in right before the holiday weekend. The public can submit comment on the measure any time before August 1, 2016 by emailing [email protected] and specifying “comments on special waste from health care facilities.”