NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota opposes the Grieving Parents Act, a bill that mandates physician-patient communication:

Interference of Patient Care

NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota opposes state-mandated information being given to women because it interferes with the physician-patient relationship and duplicates the efforts of clinics to give their clients appropriate information.

Redundant

According to the Minnesota Hospital Association, all the requirements of the Grieving Parents Act are already Minnesota hospitals’ current practice, and offer cremation and burial services to parents who wish to utilize them in their time of grief. Hospitals currently have trained social workers meet with grieving parents, who can professionally accommodate patients’ particular method of grief, within their financial restraints.

Legislative time does not need to be spent deliberating over a bill that is redundant to existing hospital policies.

Vague Wording

Nothing in this bill prevents the statue from possibly being applied to abortion clinics.

A small change could easily be made during future legislative sessions that could require abortion clinics to offer cremation services. 

NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota opposes all legislation mandating physicians’ communication with patients, and supports the Minnesota Hospital Associations’ current practices.