CINCINNATI, Ohio — The state of Ohio has agreed to pay the abortion giant Planned Parenthood over $45,000 in attorneys fees and costs in a settlement over discoveries that the bodies of aborted babies had been picked up by medical waste companies to be steam-treated or incinerated, and then dumped in landfills.

As previously reported, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who identifies as pro-life and believes that abortion is “morally reprehensible,” announced the finding about Planned Parenthood’s practice in December.

“First steam-cooking fetuses and then disposing of them in a landfill is not humane,” he said. “It will come as a shock to Ohioans to find out that fetuses are being cooked and then they’re being put in a landfill, and they’re going to be mixed in with the garbage and whatever else goes into a landfill.”

DeWine’s office had been investigating whether Planned Parenthood facilities in the state were selling the body parts of aborted babies following the release of national undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress.

While determining that aborted babies in Ohio weren’t being sold to research, DeWine’s Charitable Law Section rather found that the children were being picked up by medical waste companies and either steam treated or incinerated and then dumped into a landfill with household and commercial trash.

He said that the practice is illegal as it violates Chapter 3701-47-05 of the Ohio abortion law, which states that a “fetus shall be disposed of in a humane manner.”

Accu Medical Waste Service, Inc. in Marietta had been serving the Cincinnati and Columbus Planned Parenthood locations, and had transported the containers of aborted babies to its steam plant where they were autoclaved and then trucked to a landfill in Kentucky. The company soon severed its ties with the abortion industry due to “adverse attention” over the matter.

The medical waste giant Stericycle, which serves the Bedford Heights Planned Parenthood, had been picking up aborted babies from the location and either having them steamed or incinerated, depending on how Planned Parenthood had marked the boxes. The fetal remains were then trucked to Republic Services Carbon Limestone Landfill in Lowellville after being treated.

Corporate representatives of Stericycle had claimed to DeWine’s office during the investigation that the company does not accept fetal remains for disposal. The medical waste giant has been facing possible fines in South Carolina for likewise disposing of aborted babies in a landfill. Stericycle was fined $42,000 in Texas in 2011 for doing so.

As DeWine said that he planned to file for an injunction in court to require that Planned Parenthood cease disposing of aborted babies in autoclaves, incineration plants and landfills, Planned Parenthood subsequently filed for a restraining order against any legal action, and prevailed. The organization asserted that the “human manner” clause of the law was vague.

Last week, after Ohio officials agreed not enforce the law and consented to paying the abortion giant’s attorney’s fees, the two sides moved to dismiss the suit. Officials were also satisfied after Planned Parenthood advised that it was no longer doing business with Accu Medical and that babies were now being incinerated instead of autoclaved.

“It’s always a benefit to understand what the law is before you are told you are not in compliance,” Planned Parenthood attorney Jennifer Branch said in a statement. “It’s always good to have cases disposed of because it’s such a distraction and it causes a concern for patients and the staff. So it is good that this one has been put away.”

DeWine is now looking to the legislature to resolve the matter by passing a new law that provides clear language regarding the disposal of aborted babies.

“[We are] very pleased that the General Assembly intends to establish clear standards which ensure that the gruesome practice does not continue in Ohio,” spokesman Dan Tierney told the Columbus Dispatch.

As previously reported, in April, Rep. Robert McColley, R-Napoleon, and Rep. Barbara Sears, R-Sylvania, crafted crafted H.B. 417 and 419, which would require that the babies be either buried, cremated or incinerated. If incinerated, they must be burned by themselves, as medical waste companies had mixed mixed the containers of baby body parts in with trash. The bills also require that mothers give directives as to how they want their child disposed.

The bill was approved by the House Health and Aging Committee, but was criticized by pro-abortion groups as “another way to punish women and the medical community for abortion.”

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