Editor’s note: Following publication of this story, state Rep. Francis Ryan, the bill’s sponsor, told PennLive the fetal remains bill would give parents the option of a cremation or funeral but wouldn’t require it. This story has been updated to reflect Ryan’s remarks.

A proposed bill making its way through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives would require women to provide funeral services for the remains of a miscarriage or an abortion.

House Bill 1890 would require medical facilities to notify parents that that they have the option of cremating or burying any medical tissue - including embryonic tissue, fertilized ovum or blastocyst - resulting from a miscarriage or an abortion.

The measure would impact fetal remains regardless of gestational age, meaning from the moment of conception. Currently, the law affects pregnancies after 16 weeks.

Rep. Francis Ryan, the Lebanon County Republican who sponsored the Final Disposition of Fetal Remain Act, suggests personal reasons for the measure. He said he doesn’t intend for the bill to impose any mandates on families to bury or cremate fetal remains.

“I have spoken openly about the loss my wife and I suffered when we lost our unborn child,” he wrote in September when he first introduced the proposal. “This bill is substantially similar to Indiana legislation which was recently declared constitutional by the United State Supreme Court. This creates a stand-alone act which will provide for a respectful internment of these innocent lives which have been lost.”

The measure, which earlier this week was approved by the House Health Committee, on Wednesday advanced to third consideration in the full House.

Opponents of the measure widely see it as the latest proposal targeting women’s reproductive rights. Critics say it’s designed to discourage women from having abortions.

“I believe this bill imposes mandates on religious rituals on people,” said Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, a Philadelphia Democrat. “That’s not something we should be doing. I believe it’s a dangerosus step in restricting abortion in Pennsylvania by increasing the cost of a procedure and adding funeral expenses as well as being an attempt to shame people. I think this is a back-door approach to limit access to abortion.”

The bill would require medical providers to file a death certificate and arrange for the burial or cremation of the fetal remains.

Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, criticized the restrictions as having zero medical rationale.

“We received heartfelt emails from women telling us about their early miscarriages, how difficult they were, and how much worse it would have been were they forced to get a death certificate for a pregnancy that they understood so differently,” Frankel said. “It’s simply wrong to tell women what a loss of pregnancy is supposed to mean to them.”

Ryan’s bill is modeled after an Indiana provision that was signed into law in 2016 by then-Gov. Mike Pence and earlier this year upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Indiana’s law requires the facility performing the abortion to provide for the burial or cremation, but doesn’t specify how the remains should be handled before then or what could be done with the cremation ashes.

“This is just another restriction being pushed by opponents of reproductive rights with the intention to chip away and ultimately eliminate access to safe, legal abortion care in Pennsylvania,” said Ashley Lenker White, executive director of Planned Parenthood PA Advocates.

“Instead of focusing on these intrusive laws that threaten patient’s access to health care and shame them for their personal decisions, we should focus our attention on promoting laws that support people and their families, or help prevent unintended pregnancy, rather than interfering in complicated, private medical decisions.”

Other states have been emboldened by the high court’s ruling in the Indiana law.

Texas and Louisiana have adopted similar fetal remains laws in recent years, but those have been blocked by federal judges. The Ohio Senate approved a version in March but the state House hasn’t yet acted on it.

Moreover, in the wake of the restructured Supreme Court - which now has a conservative majority - state legislatures continue to push for extraordinarily restrictive laws on abortion. Several states have passed new bans in recent months aimed at ultimately forcing the Supreme Court to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Several weeks ago, several conservative Pennsylvania state lawmakers introduced a so-called “heartbeat bill,” which would bar abortion once a fetal heartbeat was heard.

Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin) and Rep. Stephanie Borowicz (R., Clinton) say their measure is aimed at giving a more conservative Supreme Court the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Health professionals, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, argue that heartbeat proposals do not reflect medical accuracy.

Ohio this spring enacted such a measure; Alabama has adopted a law to ban most abortions.

Abortion opponents welcome the fetal remains proposal as a recognition of the dignity of an unborn child.

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection,” said Eric Failing, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, which supports Ryan’s proposal. “The burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy, it honors the children of God who are temples of the Holy Spirit.”

On Tuesday, several lawmakers introduced amendments to the proposal. Rep. Pamela DeLissio, D-Philadelphia, wants to see the bill apply to pregnancies after 24 weeks of gestation. That timeframe, she said on the House floor, aligns with medical parameters of viability and the legal definition of stillbirth.

Rep. Mary Jo Daley, D-Montgomery County, introduced an amendment that would ensure Pennsylvania women had reasonable workplace accommodations related to pregnancy, child birth and related medical conditions.

Lenker White, of the state Planned Parenthood chapter, said the bill would drastically change Pennsylvania law with respect to how death certificates are processed are handled.

“This bill seriously threatens patients’ privacy and confidentiality by requiring the state to issue death certificates as well as burial or cremation permits for every abortion, regardless of a person’s wishes or how early in the pregnancy the abortion occurs,” she said. “Since such documents can be made public, a patient who has decided to have an abortion could have their personal information exposed.”

Fiedler said she vowed to oppose the measure.

“I‘m very firm in my belief that as women just as men and people of every gender, we deserve autonomy over our own body,” she said. “I “m firm and unwavering. It’s the law of the land we have the right to control our own body and not have the arm of the Legislature inserted in our bedroom and doctor’s office.“

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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