Life

Mandatory Fetus-Funerals Coming to Texas

The remains of King Richard III, a person who once existed. Image by Getty Images

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy November 30, 2016

New rules in Texas — not proposed rules or rules speculated in the abstract in a philosophy seminar, but actual, real-life rules — require medical facilities that perform abortions to treat fetal tissue as dead bodies, either burying or cremating the tissue in question. A chilling sentence from Tracy Clark-Flory’s Vocativ piece on the story reads: “In response to concerns expressed by activists and the general public, officials have clarified that fetuses will not be required to receive death certificates, and women who miscarry at home do not have to ceremonially bury the tissue.” The rule will, however, apply to the products of miscarriage, should that miscarriage occur at a medical facility.

I’m sure there’s a way to respond to this that doesn’t involve suggesting any male legislators who made it so that this is even a question be required by law to ceremonially bury their own, uh, theoretically-baby-making material. I’m sure there is, but I’m having trouble finding one.

I respect that for religious reasons, some people view abortion as wrong in all cases. What I would like to know, and am struggling to imagine, is the secular justification for compelling medical facilities to treat fetal tissue like people. Struggling, because there really isn’t one. This isn’t the pope offering up instructions for Catholic believers. It’s Texas.

Why should we care about any of this? Because it’s an outrageous interference with reproductive rights, which is bound to have consequences for actual, real-life women, including many who feel a bit unsure about abortion until the moment comes when they find themselves needing one. I leave you with two additional articles, one about a 32-year-old woman in Tennessee currently “facing new felony charges” for having attempted to give herself an abortion, the other short interviews with women who had abortions before they became legal in the United States.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at bovy@forward.com. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO