Indiana’s Post-Abortion Fetal Disposal Law Revived on Appeal

A lower court injunction barring enforcement of an Indiana law requiring that abortion providers bury or cremate fetal remains was “needlessly broad” and in opposition to high court precedent, the Seventh Circuit said Monday, summarily reversing the decision.

The district judge issued an injunction blocking the law on First Amendment grounds based on the plaintiffs’ religious and moral beliefs that fetal remains should be treated like other medical waste. But Indiana’s “cremate-or-bury directive” applies to providers, so it doesn’t require abortion patients to “violate any belief, religious or secular,” the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said. ...