H.B. No. 2078

RIGHT TO REQUEST CREMATION

Effective Date: September 1, 1997

AN ACT

relating to the disposition of a person's remains.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. Section 711.002(g), Health and Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:

(g) A person may provide written directions for the disposition, including cremation, of the person's remains in a will, a prepaid funeral contract, or a written instrument signed and acknowledged by such person. The directions may be modified or revoked only by a subsequent writing signed and acknowledged by such person. The person otherwise entitled to control the disposition of a decedent's remains under this section shall faithfully carry out the directions of the decedent to the extent that the decedent's estate or the person controlling the disposition are financially able to do so.

SECTION 2. The importance of this legislation and the crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended, and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.

Please note: Even though this bill purports to be effective "from and after its passage," it becomes effective September 1, 1997 (90 days after the end of the 75^th Legislature's regular session) because it passed by a non-record vote in the House. Section 39, Article III of the Texas constitution provides: "No law passed by the Legislature . . . shall take effect or go into force until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was enacted, unless . . . the Legislature shall, by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House, otherwise direct. . . ."

Courtesy of Glenn M. Karisch, Ikard & Golden, P. C., Austin, Texas. This page was last revised on June 12, 1997.