On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott dealt pro-life advocates a small victory.
Effective December 19, hospitals and abortion clinics within the state will no longer be allowed to treat aborted babies like medical waste: Medical facilities will be required to either cremate or bury the unborn babies they kill, not contingent on the period of gestation–as opposed to sending the baby’s remains to be incinerated or dumped into a landfill, as most facilities currently do.
As reported by the Texas Tribune, Texas health officials proposed the new pro-life legislation back in July, receiving major push-back from pro-abortion zealots. The rules were finalized to ensure that birth and death certificates of aborted babies were not required, as a way to appease confidentiality concerns. Also, it was clarified that new regulations do not apply to miscarriages or abortions done at home. Further, hospitals and abortion clinics will solely be responsible for the burial or cremation, cost and all–not the patient.
Through a fundraising email, Governor Abbott explained that the new rules would finally prohibit aborted babies to be “treated like medical waste and disposed of in landfills.”
Hearing the expected onslaught of complaints by the pro-abortion lobby, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) emphasized the obvious: The new related costs of burial and cremation would be “offset by the elimination of some current methods of disposition.” The rules “carry out the department’s duty to protect public health in a manner that’s consonant with the state’s respect for life and dignity of the unborn,” stated HHSC officials.
Still, those who support abortion are upset with the legislation, which dares to treat ripped apart, murdered babies as humans and not yesterday’s trash.
“The state agency has once again ignored the concerns of the medical community and thousands of Texans by playing politics with people’s private healthcare decisions,” whined Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas.
There is currently a similar law in Indiana being challenged by Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups in the Supreme Court. The legislation, much like Texas’, requires aborted babies to be cremated or buried, but the law also prohibits doctors from knowingly aborting babies based merely on sex or detected disability, such as Down Syndrome.
So, yes, the abortion lobby is currently fighting to dump murdered babies into landfills and for the “right” to kill the unborn merely for being female or having Down Syndrome. A lovely bunch.