Advocacy
People's Memorial advocates for consumer protection and choice for funeral and related end of life issues. Our advocacy priorities are:
- Increasing consumer choices,
- Increasing pricing transparency, and
- Ensuring consumer protection from predatory sales tactics.
PMA was a founding member of the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA), which has historically functioned as a unifying force for consumer advocacy at the national level.
Advocacy Wins
- PMA and a team of death care providers worked together to pass SB 5001 Concerning Human Remains. This bill legalizes two additional disposition options, alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction (2019).
- PMA worked side-by-side with the funeral industry to bring about passage of Designated Agent legislation, which helps consumers control who makes decisions about their care (2011).
- Won the right for Washington's religious and cultural minorities to have up to 24 hours to perform religious or cultural rituals with an unembalmed, unrefrigerated body (2007).
- Protected the rights of Washington families to care for their own dead (2005).
- PMA played a key role in changing Washington law to place the funeral industry under the state’s Consumer Protection Act (2002) and helped pass another law legalizing the scattering of ashes of the deceased by their loved ones.
- The FCA and PMA were instrumental in getting the Federal Trade Commission to adopt a set of standards for transparency in funeral home pricing called the Funeral Rule (1984). The Funeral Rule standards were revolutionary in codifying the rights of consumers and empowering them to get the deathcare that meets the unique needs of their family.
