LOS ANGELES -- A woman has settled her lawsuit against Los Angeles
County involving the disposal of her infant daughter as "bio-waste"
after she had an abortion.

36-year-old Yolanda Garnett filed the negligence lawsuit September 25,
2007 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The lawsuit stated Garnett had asked the Coroner's office to return
her daughter's body for burial after an autopsy was performed but was
told the aborted fetus was deemed bio-waste and thrown out.

According to court papers filed by attorneys for the county, Garnett
underwent an abortion on Feb. 20, 2006 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
when her fetus was 23 weeks old.

Because the second of two autopsies showed the fetus' death was caused
by an abortion, a death certificate could not be created and a burial
or cremation permit could not be issued, according to the county of
Los Angeles.

"Under those circumstances the remains could not be released to the
next of kin, so the fetal remains were disposed of as a specimen per
Department of Coroner policy," the county's court papers state.

The terms of the settlement were not divulged in a notice of
settlement document filed with the court July 9 by Garnett's lawyer,
J. Barry Moses.

Garnett decided to terminate the pregnancy because of her doctor's
opinion that the baby would be born with severe birth defects,
according to Moses.

http://ktla.trb.com/news/ktla-abortion-lawsuit,0,4716326.story