The bill adds a new section to the Public Health Service Act that makes it a federal crime for an ‘‘abortion provider’’ to cause ‘‘fetal remains’’ to be placed into a publicly owned water system. Violators face fines under title 18 and up to five years in prison; the person upon whom the abortion is performed is explicitly exempt from liability.
This matters because it overlays criminal law onto clinical waste-handling practices, uses broad definitions (including ‘‘any other medical waste associated with an abortion’’), and reaches disposal into drains and pipes that connect to municipal systems. Clinics, waste contractors, and wastewater operators will need to assess how existing disposal practices interact with the new federal prohibition and its criminal penalties.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill inserts Section 498F into the Public Health Service Act, criminalizing conduct by abortion providers that results in fetal remains entering a publicly owned water system. It prescribes penalties—fines under title 18 and up to five years imprisonment—and preserves state or local rules that are more restrictive.
Who It Affects
Directly affects clinicians and facilities that perform abortions, medical-waste handlers that manage tissues and biohazardous byproducts of abortions, and municipal water utilities whose systems are identified as protected infrastructure. The bill exempts the patient from criminal liability.
Why It Matters
By placing this prohibition in federal public health law and imposing criminal penalties, the bill creates a new enforcement lever separate from existing medical-waste regulation. Its broad definitions and inclusion of drains and pipes raise practical compliance questions for providers and contractors and could produce a patchwork of state standards.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill amends the Public Health Service Act by adding Section 498F, which turns specified disposal conduct into a federal crime. It targets the actor labeled an ‘‘abortion provider’’ and forbids that person from causing ‘‘fetal remains’’ to be placed into any ‘‘publicly owned water system,’’ a term the text defines to include not only treatment plants but the drains, pipes, and devices that connect to them.
The ban therefore reaches on-site disposal that ultimately flows into government-controlled water infrastructure.
Penalties attach to the provider: fines under title 18 and imprisonment for up to five years. The statute carves out one clear non-liability: the individual upon whom the abortion is performed cannot be prosecuted under this provision.
Separately, the bill contains a clause preserving the ability of states and localities to adopt their own prohibitions that are at least as restrictive as this federal rule, leaving room for a state-level patchwork.The bill’s definitions are expansive. ‘‘Fetal remains’’ expressly covers remains of an aborted fetus or a portion thereof and then adds ‘‘any other medical waste associated with an abortion,’’ language that could encompass tissues, blood products, and instruments used in the procedure unless further clarified by regulation. ‘‘Abortion’’ is defined to include procedures using devices or substances to intentionally kill or terminate the pregnancy, with narrow exceptions for interventions intended to produce a live birth or to remove a dead unborn child.Operationally, the statute obligates providers and their waste-management partners to prevent any pathway by which the defined materials reach a municipal system. The text does not establish a civil regulatory regime or technical standards for disposal—its enforcement mechanism is criminal prosecution—so compliance will likely require providers to re-evaluate existing disposal contracts, on-site practices, and disposal routing to ensure materials go to licensed medical-waste processors rather than drains that feed public systems.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill creates a federal crime (new Section 498F of the Public Health Service Act) that prohibits an abortion provider from causing fetal remains to be placed in a publicly owned water system.
Violation of the prohibition exposes the abortion provider to fines under title 18, United States Code, and imprisonment for up to five years, or both.
The person upon whom an abortion is performed is explicitly exempted from liability for conduct covered by this section.
The statutory definition of ‘‘fetal remains’’ includes not only an aborted fetus or any portion of it but also ‘‘any other medical waste associated with an abortion.’’, The definition of ‘‘publicly owned water system’’ reaches systems owned or controlled by federal, state, or local entities and expressly includes drains, pipes, and devices that connect to those systems — i.e.
on-site disposal into toilets or sinks that flow to municipal systems would fall within the ban.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
Designates the act as the ‘‘Respectful Treatment of Unborn Remains Act of 2025.’nThis is a standard short-title clause that signals the bill’s focus but has no operational effect on obligations or enforcement.
Prohibition on causing fetal remains in publicly owned water systems
Subsection (a) states the core substantive prohibition: an abortion provider may not cause fetal remains to be placed into a publicly owned water system. Because the prohibition targets conduct by the provider and uses the causation phrasing, enforcement will turn on evidence that the provider’s actions or omissions were the proximate cause of placement into the public system.
Criminal penalties
Subsection (b) makes the offense criminal, referencing fines under title 18 and a potential term of imprisonment not exceeding five years. The bill does not create a separate sentencing framework or civil enforcement path; it relies on federal criminal law to deter and punish violations.
Patient immunity and relation to state/local law
Subsection (c) expressly immunizes the individual upon whom the abortion was performed from liability under this section. Subsection (d) clarifies that the federal provision does not preempt state or local requirements that themselves prohibit providers from causing fetal remains to enter these systems, effectively allowing states to adopt stricter prohibitions.
Who counts as an abortion provider and what counts as an abortion
The definitions section labels an ‘‘abortion provider’’ as an individual who performs an abortion and excludes the patient from that label. ‘‘Abortion’’ is defined broadly to include procedures using a device or substance to intentionally terminate a pregnancy or kill the unborn child, with narrow carve-outs for procedures intended to preserve life or remove a dead fetus. These definitional choices frame who will be subject to criminal exposure and which clinical acts fall within the statute.
Scope of materials and infrastructure covered
‘‘Fetal remains’’ includes an aborted fetus or part of one and adds ‘‘any other medical waste associated with an abortion,’’ a catch-all that significantly broadens the material scope beyond intact fetal tissue. ‘‘Publicly owned water system’’ covers systems owned or controlled by government entities and explicitly includes drains, pipes, and devices that connect to those systems, meaning disposal into any connected on-site plumbing that ultimately reaches municipal treatment is targeted.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Healthcare across all five countries.
Explore Healthcare in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Municipal and public water utilities — gain a statutory federal prohibition that supports safeguarding treatment systems and provides a clearer basis to push for stricter local disposal practices.
- Individuals undergoing abortion procedures — the bill expressly removes criminal liability for the patient, insulating them from prosecution under this federal provision.
- State and local governments that seek more restrictive rules — the non-preemption clause enables them to enact and enforce tighter prohibitions without conflict with the federal text.
Who Bears the Cost
- Abortion providers and clinical staff — they face new criminal exposure for disposal pathways that reach public water systems and may need to change clinical waste handling to avoid prosecution.
- Healthcare facilities and affiliated waste contractors — will likely face increased compliance costs to ensure all abortion-related waste is routed to compliant medical-waste processors rather than plumbing that feeds municipal systems.
- Federal and state prosecutors and public-health regulators — the criminal enforcement model shifts investigative burdens onto prosecutors and may require new protocols to detect, prove causation, and litigate cases involving disposal pathways.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill confronts two legitimate aims—preventing human tissue from entering public water infrastructure and protecting public health—by using criminal law to regulate clinical disposal practices; the core tension is whether criminal prohibition is an appropriate, administrable tool for what is partly a technical, waste-management problem, since criminalization raises evidentiary challenges and broad definitional reach that may penalize routine medical handling rather than intentional misconduct.
The bill marries a public-infrastructure protection objective with a criminal enforcement mechanism, and that combination creates several implementation tensions. First, the statutory catch-all ‘‘any other medical waste associated with an abortion’’ is operationally vague: it could be read to include routine biohazardous materials (blood, tissue fragments, soiled gauze), not only intact fetal tissue.
Providers and waste handlers will need clarity about what specific materials must be segregated and how to document safe disposal to avoid criminal exposure.
Second, proving that a provider ‘‘caused’’ placement into a publicly owned water system presents evidentiary and logistical problems. Municipal treatment plants are not designed to test for or trace the presence of fetal material to a specific source, and the bill does not create a civil or regulatory inspection regime to generate that evidence.
That means enforcement will likely hinge on investigative work (contract records, witness testimony, disposal manifests) rather than routine environmental monitoring, increasing prosecutorial burdens.
Finally, the bill overlays federal criminal liability on top of existing medical-waste and hazardous-waste regulatory architectures without specifying how conflicts or duplications should be resolved. The absence of technical disposal standards means compliance will be shaped by contract practice, state law, and prosecutorial discretion rather than a unified federal compliance rule, producing uneven outcomes across jurisdictions and uncertainty for providers and waste managers.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.