Judge blocks Ohio’s humane burial law, claiming it would ‘severely impede access to abortion’

Four years after the institution of a law requiring the bodies of aborted children to be buried or cremated in a humane manner, an Ohio judge has blocked it, claiming it would somehow prevent women from accessing abortions.

Senate Bill 27 was signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine in December of 2020, mandating the respectful treatment of aborted babies’ bodies. Abortionists and the ACLU both filed lawsuits challenging it, complaining that the law would be burdensome for abortion facilities to implement.

“The law and the implementing rules are extremely burdensome and expensive to comply with – impossible in many regards – and vague and unclear as to how to comply,” Freda Levenson of the ACLU of Ohio said. “It’s very, very costly to provide cremation or burial for a small collection of cells. This law applies even to a blastocyte or to a small number of cells or to an embryo.”

She further claimed that funeral homes don’t want to work with abortion facilities.

Last week, Hamilton County Judge Alison Hatheway ruled in favor of the ACLU and the abortionists, permanently blocking the law. She argued that it violates the constitutional amendment passed by voters enshrining abortion as a right in the Ohio constitution.

“If S.B. 27 were allowed to go into effect, it would severely impede access to abortion resulting in delayed or denied health care,” Hatheway wrote in her decision. The state argued that the law does not affect access to abortion, but Hatheway disagreed.

READ: A botched abortion 15 years ago left her without limbs. Now, she’s getting her day in court.

Before this law was put into place, the bodies of aborted preborn children were disposed of as “medical waste,” though Ohio hospitals already had procedures in place for respectful handling of miscarried or stillborn fetal remains. Yet due to the lawsuits against it, the law has been on hold.

The abortion industry is known for its callous treatment of their victims, with Planned Parenthood in Ohio caught dumping bodies into landfills. Other abortion facilities have used the bodies for electricity, flushed them down toilets, stored them in freezers, or left them in their cars. It’s for these exact reasons that laws like this one are needed.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has not yet responded to Hatheway’s ruling, or indicated if he plans to appeal.