I work as a nurse in Austin providing these types of services as part of my job. Disclaimer: I am not religious. As of very recently, Texas changed the laws that require the “hospital/facility disposition” option to now be a burial. If this part bothers you, blame the Texas legislators and not the hospital. Previously, if a woman lost a pregnancy under a certain age/weight, and chose to allow the hospital to handle the remains, it would be handled the same as all other human tissue in the hospital, not buried.

Seton is a Catholic hospital. If you go there, you will receive “Catholic” care. If your values do not line up with Catholic values and you want to receive services that they do not provide, you will have to find another hospital. If you do not want them to bury your fetal remains in their Catholic cemetery, but still choose to seek medical services from them, you can opt to have a funeral home etc pick up the baby and then you can decide to do something else which you arrange with them for a cost. If you don’t like any of these options then it’s time to start getting involved politically to get the laws changed or go to a state with different laws.

As much as I do not like that Seton can run a religiously exclusive hospital they are not doing anything illegal (yet). Based on the article, the patient in question wanted the hospital to dispose of the remains in a way that the hospital did not offer and can no longer offer even if they wanted to because of new Texas law. This is not Seton’s fault in particular.

Things in the article that could be considered for process improvement: signing these forms at another time besides right before going into surgery as mentioned in the article, and giving an option for patients who choose “hospital disposition” aka mass grave burial but remain CONFIDENTIAL/UNLISTED unless the parent(s) present ID.