Judge Refuses to Halt Burial of 16,500 Fetuses

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge refused Friday to halt the planned burial of 16,500 fetuses to preserve the right for a new appeal on grounds that burial would violate the privacy of the women who aborted them.

Attorney Gilbert Gaynor, representing the Feminist Women’s Health Center, argued that burial would thwart the “reasonable expectation” of a woman that tissue excised from the human body be incinerated.

Judge Robert H. O’Brien, while agreeing that the argument was an interesting one, nevertheless stuck by his July ruling that the county can authorize burial as long as there is no religious ceremony.

The judge said that state law gives the county agency the discretion to opt for either form of disposal and that he would act under that statute.

“The (individual) woman, would she care one way or the other?” O’Brien asked.

Fetuses Found in ’82

On Aug. 27 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered the burial of the fetuses found in 1982 in a container at the Woodland Hills home of a man who operated a Santa Monica medical laboratory.

The county stored the fetuses three years while parties to an abortion controversy debated. Religious and anti-abortion groups argued for funeral services. American Civil Liberties Union lawyers, on behalf of the Feminist Center, asked for incineration on the grounds that the fetuses were unwanted biological tissue.

The county argued that it would not permit any kind of religious services but that burial in itself was not a religious symbol and ordered the fetuses turned over to Guerra-Gutierrez & Alexander Mortuary. Mortuary attorney Jack M. Schuler said Friday that no cemetery has been selected yet, although several have offered space.

Gaynor indicated that his clients may ask the state Court of Appeal to stay O’Brien’s latest burial order to permit appeal on the privacy issue. Notice of appeal of O’Brien’s earlier ruling has already been filed, he said.