North Carolina General Statutes Chapter 130A. Public Health § 130A-131.10. Manner of disposition of remains of pregnancies

(a) The Commission for Public Health shall adopt rules to ensure that all facilities authorized to terminate pregnancies, and all medical or research laboratories or facilities to which the remains of terminated pregnancies are sent shall dispose of the remains in a manner limited to burial, cremation, or, except as prohibited by subsection (b) of this section, approved hospital type of incineration.

(b) A hospital or other medical facility or a medical or research laboratory or facility shall dispose of the remains of a recognizable fetus only by burial or cremation. The Commission shall adopt rules to implement this subsection.

(c) Repealed by S.L. 2015-265, § 1, eff. Oct. 1, 2015.

(d) This section does not impose liability on a permitted medical waste treatment facility for a hospital's or other medical facility's violation of this section nor does it impose any additional duty on the treatment facility to inspect waste received from the hospital or medical facility to determine compliance with this section.

(e) Nothing in this section shall prevent the mother from donating the remains of her unborn child after a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage to a research facility for research or from acquiring the remains of the unborn child after a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. The mother's informed written consent to allow research to be conducted upon the remains of the unborn child after a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage must be obtained prior to the donation and must be separate from any other prior consent.

(f) Nothing in this section shall prevent the performance of autopsies performed according to law, or any pathological examinations, chromosomal analyses, cultures, or any other examinations deemed necessary by attending pathologists or treating physicians for diagnostic purposes.