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 functions as a unifying force for consumer advocacy at the national level.
Advocacy Wins
- PMA and a team of deathcare providers worked together to pass SB 5001 Concerning Human Remains. This bill legalized two additional disposition options in Washington: alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction (2019).
- PMA worked side-by-side with the funeral industry to bring about passage of Designated Agent legislation (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 was instrumental in getting the Federal Trade Commission to adopt a set of standards for funeral home pricing called The Funeral Rule (1984). PMA's biennial Funeral Price Survey was a key component of this successful effort. 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. One of the most important parts of this legislation has been protecting the rights of consumers to get clear, accurate price information from funeral homes. PMA is one of many organizations now working to bring the Funeral Rule into the 21st Century, by requiring funeral homes to post their pricing on their websites.
