Miscarriage is a devastating, life-altering event that far too many parents walk through without adequate care for their needs or meaningful recognition of their lost child. Rather than weaponizing the loss, public policy advocates must uplift these families with substantive care and recognize that their grief is not just the end of a pregnancy. It is the loss of a human life.
The Mayo Clinic reports that around 10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage in the United States, though the number is likely actually higher. It also notes most happen within the first 13 weeks of life, but most states do not have clear dignity-affirming measures until the baby is 20 weeks developed.
Nearly every state requires reporting of fetal deaths at or around 20 weeks (due to federal reporting laws), but laws governing fetal death certificates, parental rights notification, and the burying of remains before that point vary from state to state.
In most states, grieving parents have no clear legal right to direct the disposition of their child’s remains or even be informed of the options available to them. Instead, these deeply personal decisions are often left to varying hospital policies that deny the child his/her rightful dignity.
In particularly left-leaning states, a child under 20 weeks gestational age, or the “product of conception” as they degradingly classify the child, may be disposed of without any legal requirement that parents be informed of their options or ability to seek closure. The Associated Press covered a story a few years ago of a hospital worker flushing a child’s remains (19 weeks) down the toilet, despite their parents’ request otherwise. This has been a controversial fight for decades with a famous case around the turn of the century highlighting a hospital’s refusal to allow a mother to bury her child’s remains who was less than 20 weeks developed. ABC News’s coverage of the events in 2000 notes, “in the majority of states, contents of the womb prior to 20 weeks of gestation would be handled like medical waste. Hospitals incinerate the material as they would tumors or gallstones. Experts say some parents are becoming more attached to developing fetuses these days than they were decades ago.”
However, despite the “unprecedented attention to developing human life,” the laws affirming parents’ rights following the death of a child remain relatively unchanged and are hinged to the arbitrary 20-week marker. Even states that explicitly allow burial before 20 weeks have largely unclear laws and lack the necessary parental notification of their rights.
Parents who have grieved the loss of an unborn child know: their child is no less human at 19 weeks than 21 weeks, and parents on both sides of the marker deserve to know their right to affirm their child’s dignity.
Arizona is one state seeking change. Arizona House Bill 2184 would amend state law to authorize the issuance of a fetal death certificate before 20 weeks upon the mother’s request and explicitly grant her the right to bury her child’s remains using the services of a funeral home. The law’s distinctly humanizing language “unborn child” (replacing “fetus”) is a marked change from the state’s passage of Proposition 139 in 2024, which granted a “right to abortion” statewide. The bill also ensures every mother is notified of this right upon the death of her child.
The Legislature failed to pass the measure before closing out the 2026 session but stirred conversations that will surely ripple into next year’s session, and, hopefully, beyond. Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee will be sure to pick up where it left off in Arizona and nationwide, seeking policies that affirm parents’ rights to grieve and honor the lives of children lost, regardless of gestational age.
