Women could be forced to pay to bury aborted, miscarried fetuses under new Utah bill

A new Utah bill would require women to decide how to dispose of fetuses after an abortion or miscarriage — and ban fetuses from being treated as medical waste.

State Sen. Curt Bramble, who sponsored the bill, told Utah Policy that he knows the bill could pose another obstacle for women getting an abortion by potentially having them face additional costs.

“I would hope it makes a person choosing to have an abortion reflect on that they’re disposing of a human being, that this is not just medical waste,” Bramble, a Republican, said. “These are human beings. A child in the womb is still a child and those remains should be treated with dignity.”

The bill is similar to one passed in Indiana that mandates that women choose how to dispose of aborted fetuses. The law criminalizes disposing of a fetus as medical waste and requires that they be buried or cremated, including in cases of miscarriages and stillbirths, according to The Atlantic.

In May 2019, the conservative-majority Supreme Court upheld the Indiana fetal remains law after a lower court blocked it, The Associated Press reported.

Other laws have been passed in Georgia and Arkansas regarding how aborted fetuses must be disposed.

This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Women could be forced to pay to bury aborted, miscarried fetuses under new Utah bill."