October 7, 2022

Attorney general to appeal judge’s ruling on disposal of babies’ remains

Criterion staff report

A federal judge in Indiana has blocked a law that would require babies that have been aborted to be buried or cremated.

U.S. District Judge Richard Young for the Southern District of Indiana’s decision on Sept. 26 means that babies that have been aborted can be treated as medical waste.

Indiana Right to Life CEO Mike Fichter, in a statement, said the state prevailed on this issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, and he is confident it will happen again.

“But the sad reality of how the remains of aborted babies will once again be treated in our state is heartbreaking,” he said. “This brings home the tragic reality of what abortion really is.”

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a defendant in the lawsuit, said his office will appeal the ruling.

“The U.S. Supreme Court several years ago upheld our law requiring respectful disposition of aborted fetal remains because it safeguards human dignity,” Rokita said in a statement released to WTHR-News. “We plan to appeal this ruling permitting disrespect for human remains as mere ‘medical waste.’ ”

The requirement to cremate or bury aborted babies was part of House Enrolled Act 1337, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Mike Pence in March of 2016.

The ruling notes that prior to the March 2016 law, Indiana permitted but did not require facilities to dispose of fetal tissue via “incineration, steam sterilization, chemical disinfection, thermal inactivation and irradiation.”

According to the text of Judge Young’s ruling, the plaintiffs (listed generically as Jane Doe, et al.) levied “a bevy of constitutional claims against these requirements, namely that the requirements violate the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, the Free Speech Clause, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.”

The final decision denied the complaints against constitutional infringement of Due Process, Equal Protection and the Establishment Clause.

However, it did find in favor of the plaintiffs in terms of Free Speech and Free Exercise. †

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