This petition is important as current standards do not allow for appropriate grieving processes to poor families who don't have the ability to pay for viewing or cremation cost;
Lending to broken grief process and processing of a loved one's death.

1. Current law leaves this up to the crematorium and our Funeral Home as to whether a family can view a loved one if the state is paying for their final expenses.
2. Giving the oversight to crematoriums and funeral homes to make this decision on whether they will allow a family to view a loved one, leaves too much control in these private industries hands. These individuals are not doctors, psychologist, sociologist, they do not have the ability to decide whether it's traumatizing or not traumatizing or whether a family member should or shouldn't get to see their loved one. Everybody should get to see their deceased loved one before a cremation or State funded burial is performed regardless of ability to pay!
3. The lack of oversight by federal and State laws gives to much authority to the crematoriums and funeral homes. These private industries having sole control over a loved one's body, allows for a body to leave a hospital and to not have a good trail of records or require any evidence to be presented about; as to where that body's been kept, just word of mouth by the very people who stand to gain monetarily and when and if questioned by the Licensing Board they simply just have to lie and tell the licensing board what they want to hear because no one actually goes to go LOOK! There is currently no clear protocol a family can take, if they suspect the mishandling of a loved ones remains and or withholding of their loved ones body from them. There's no one to send out to go check on a body if the funeral homes and crematoriums embark on mishandling the body and or if they decide to withhold the body from the family.
4. If a family suspects this is occurring, who do they turn to???? Currently, there are no eyes to send to go see if the body has been cared for in the way that the crematorium or funeral home claims. Questions such as; how has the body been handled, and whether or not more nefarious activities are transpiring...such as; storing bodies in unrefrigerated environments, stacking bodies, and worse trafficking of human organs illegally. (This poses a great health risk to our country and abroad, as most of these organs would be from individuals who failed the original donor Network criteria).
5. Without laws to govern such activity, not only do families not get to see their loved ones and have the closure that is so greatly needed (because of lack of ability to pa); funeral homes and crematoriums stand to gain monetarily from these poor families, as there is no oversight that governs funeral homes in crematoriums to have to have accountability for where our loved one's have been stored, whether that loved one was actually cremated, and whether the body is even the person in question, all due to allowing the crematoriums and funeral homes to have soul oversight of a loved one's body and a persons lack of ability to pay what these private institutions want.
6. This scenario must be changed by implementing a state and federal law that states, "ALL families WILL get to see their loved ones before State paid Cremations and Burials are conducted.
7. Not changing these laws and not having appropriate oversight by more than just a crematoriums and funeral homes will absolutely continue to lend itself to the development of unsavory practices, such as illegal profit by not storing bodies correctly, high potential organ harvesting on the black market, and not allowing families to grieve losses of loved ones all because of their inability to pay.
8. I believe this loophole is one the American people will want to have closed, so that Americans are not hurt by the greed and potential health risk of crematoriums and funeral homes not having more accountability for bodies that are considered destitute. I believe Americans want families to be able to well adjust after the death of a loved one regardless of income and ability to pay.
9. Furthermore, I believe Americans will pass this law as we do not want to see profit off of others losses, which is the current situation in the model of which we are allowing low socioeconomic individuals and families to be treated buy crematoriums and funeral homes.