Judge Upholds Indiana’s Law on Disposal of Aborted Children’s Bodies

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced on Nov. 29 that his team won a court battle over the state’s contentious law regarding the disposal of aborted fetal tissue.

Rokita called the victory a “win” for the “dignity of life” when his office announced the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision to uphold Indiana’s law requiring medical facilities to bury or cremate fetal remains following abortions.

The 7th Circuit Court heard an appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana and upheld House Enrolled Act 1337, which was signed into law in 2016 by then-Gov. Mike Pence.

“The bodies of unborn babies are more than mere medical waste to be tossed out with trash,” Rokita said in a press release from his office. “They are human beings who deserve the dignity of cremation or burial. The appellate court’s decision is a win for basic decency.”

The plaintiffs claimed in their recent case that the law violated their First Amendment rights by requiring them to accept the state’s view of the personhood of an unborn child.

They also assert that the law’s demand that abortion clinics give mothers the option of burial, cremation, or taking their aborted baby’s remains home to dispose of, was tantamount to compelled speech for the doctors involved.

U.S. District Judge Richard Young in Indianapolis sided with the plaintiffs, saying the law was unconstitutional and barred the state from enforcing it. However, the state appealed the case and Judge Frank Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit disagreed.

Easterbrook said the women’s rights were not violated since they were not forced to bury or cremate the remains, and the doctors’ rights were not violated by the requirement that they give accurate information about what Indiana law requires.

Circuit judges Michael Brennan and Michael Scudder joined Easterbrook in the unanimous opinion.

This case marks the second time Indiana’s contentious law has been challenged. The first time, Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky filed suit against the state, claiming the law violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state, upholding the law, in 2019. This was noted by Indiana’s Solicitor General Thomas Fisher when he commented on the recent case, saying “Given the Supreme Court’s earlier decision upholding this very law, we were perplexed that the U.S. district court somehow found the plaintiffs’ arguments persuasive. The appeals court provided a fast—and much-needed—course correction.”

When asked about recent challenges on issues surrounding abortion Rokita told The Epoch Times that the sanctity of life continues to be a key issue in his office.

“Like most Hoosiers, I believe in building a culture of life, not the culture of death that Hollywood, the media, and the Left promote,” the attorney general said.

“That means protecting the lives of unborn babies and safeguarding the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of their mothers. Preserving the sanctity of life is and always will be a top priority.”

National Right to Life Committee president Carol Tobias said that there has been continued resistance to the state laws protecting the lives of the unborn since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with their ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization earlier this year.

When asked if abortion-related court cases have increased since the Dobbs ruling, the pro-life advocate said what they are seeing currently is “a continuation of attacks by abortionists and the abortion industry to challenge any law that protects unborn children and their mothers.”

“For almost 50 years, laws protecting babies and their moms were challenged in [usually] federal courts and frequently struck by judges who said abortion was allowed under the U.S. Constitution because of Roe v. Wade,” Tobias said.

She went on to explain the way her organization has seen activists attempt to retain abortion rights in individual states: “Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, in Dobbs v. Jackson, that Roe was wrongly decided—a right to kill preborn humans is not in the US Constitution—the abortion industry is challenging laws protective of preborn children before state judges.

“Unfortunately, those state judges are making the same mistake the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court made and creating a right to abortion in the state’s constitution.

“The laws being challenged now are mostly those laws that were in place, but not in effect, because of Roe v. Wade, i.e. trigger laws or pre-Roe laws still on the books,” Tobias said.

“The problem is that state judges are looking at state constitutions like a Rorschach inkblot test, interpreting the document to mean whatever they want it to mean.”

Indiana is one of 21 states attempting to increase protections for unborn children following the overturn of Roe v. Wade.