Require a health care facility to dispose of the remains of aborted unborn children

Brief

What this bill does

If it passes, what actually changes?

A short, freestanding bill telling abortion providers how they must handle fetal remains. It adds one new section of law rather than amending or repealing any existing statute.

• Section 1(4) requires individual disposition by cremation or interment by burial.
• Section 1(4) lets the Board of Health direct the method when that is not possible.
• Section 1(3) makes any other method of disposal unlawful at the facility.
• Section 1(2) covers remains at any stage of gestation from an elective abortion.
• Section 1(5) requires no notice to the woman about which method was used.
• The bill names no penalty, dollar figure, appropriation, or effective date.

What it says it is for

Does it do what it claims?

Mostly yes. The title promises a disposal requirement and Section 1 delivers exactly that, though one operative rule is invisible from the title.

• Match: the title's disposal mandate is Section 1(4)'s cremation-or-burial requirement.
• Match: the title's "health care facility" is the party bound by Sections 1(3) and 1(4).
• Divergence: Section 1(5) bars any required notice to the woman, which the title never mentions.
• Divergence: the duty attaches only where an elective abortion was performed, narrower than the title suggests.
• Not in the title: Section 1(4) hands fallback authority to the Board of Health.

Where Scripture bears on it

What does the Bible say about this?

The bill raises the question of whether the body of an unborn child who has died is a body owed burial, and who has standing to say how it is handled — a question the verses touch only thematically, since Israel's law treats the dead as something disposed of under fixed rule rather than convenience, and treats the woman who has given birth as having her own place before that law.

• "And they shall come at no dead person to defile themselves: but for father, or for mother, or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister that hath had no husband, they may defile themselves." Ezekiel 44:25
• "Who shall offer it before the LORD, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female." Leviticus 12:7

Neither verse settles what this bill decides: Ezekiel 44:25 concerns priestly defilement and Leviticus 12:7 the mother's purification, so together they say nothing about cremation versus burial, nothing about elective abortion, nothing about what a state may require of a medical facility, and nothing about whether the woman must be told which method was used.

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**Tri** (mode was already on; turn 7). Verses verified character-exact against the candidate list.

• **Grok (grok-4.3)** — same framing, but paired Ezekiel 44:25 with Leviticus 11:32 (dead things falling on vessels). That verse is about carcass contamination of pots and sacks; applying it to fetal remains reads as a category the bill's own subject would resent. Leviticus 12:7 is the better second verse — it also picks up Section 1(5)'s silence toward the woman.
• **Groq (openai/gpt-oss-120b)** — usable only as a negative: hit the per-minute cap, then on retry blew past the two-bullet limit, listed five verses, and truncated mid-quote (`finish_reason: "length"`).

Separately: the claude.ai Gmail, Calendar, and Drive connectors need authorizing in your claude.ai connector settings before those tools work — this session can't run the OAuth flow.

The case each way

What is the strongest argument for, and against?

The disagreement is over whether fetal remains should receive burial or cremation as a matter of respect, and who absorbs the cost of that rule.

• For: Section 1(1) frames the rule as dignity for unborn children and public health protection.
• For: One statewide standard replaces whatever varying disposal practices facilities follow now.
• For: Section 1(5) spares patients a conversation about remains they may not want.
• Against: The bill funds nothing, so cremation and burial costs fall on facilities or patients.
• Against: Section 1(5) leaves the woman no say and no information about her own care.
• Against: "Individual disposition" may be infeasible very early in gestation, forcing reliance on Board of Health discretion.

What is unsettled

What should I be careful about?

This reading covers only the printed text of an introduced bill; nothing here shows amendments, committee action, or final form.

• The text sets no penalty or enforcement process for violating Section 1(3).
• "Elective abortion" is never defined, so coverage of miscarriage is unclear.
• "Individual disposition" is undefined; whether remains may be combined is unsettled.
• No cost estimate, appropriation, or statement of who pays appears in the text.
• Section 1(4) gives the Board of Health direction-setting power with no stated standard.
• The bill states no effective date or operative date.

Text (1)

• Introduced (application/pdf)

Each link opens the Legislature's own document. The text itself is not in our database yet (fetched lazily); when it lands these pages will carry it verbatim.

All Actions (33)

Votes (5)

Every roll call as the Legislature recorded it, with each member's vote by name.

Sponsors (1)

• Sen. Ben Hansen [District 16] — primary sponsor

Amendments (1)

Fiscal Notes & Statements (7)

• Committee Statement — Committee Statement
• Fiscal Note — Fiscal Note
• Document — Hansen MO179 (prevailed)
• Document — Spivey MO178 (withdrawn)
• Document — Spivey MO87 (failed)
• Document — Spivey MO89 (failed)
• Statement of Intent — Statement of Intent

The Legislature's own companion documents; each link opens the official copy.

Committees (1)

Related Bills (0)

No related bill information was received for LB632.