Kevin D. Williamson of National Review reports that there is anger over Texas requiring fetal remains be treated as human remains. He writes:
Texas has passed a regulation requiring that human corpses be disposed of in accordance with the state’s regulation for the disposal of human corpses. That this exercise in tautology was necessary — and that it is controversial — is a reminder that we live in the golden age of mass delusion.
The underlying question here, which properly understood isn’t a question at all, has to do with abortion, and what it is that an abortion does. The biological answer to that question is straightforward: An abortion is a procedure in which a physician or another party kills a living human organism, either prior to birth or in the course of inducing a birth. About the three relevant criteria — 1) living, 2) human, 3) organism — there is no serious question: The tissue is living tissue, not dead tissue; it is human tissue, not rutabaga or koala bear tissue; it is arranged into an individual organism rather than an organ or a tumor or an extension of the maternal body.
