Undertaken With Love

Image of Colorado State Capitol by Molas

This state's status: Colorado does not currrently restrict the right of families to care for their own dead. However, on March 3, 2009, we received the following alert from Natural Transitions, an organization in Colorado that educates and supports families who want to care for their own dead:

Truly a grave concern.

We need anyone who supports the right of families to care for their own dead, anyone who supports the guidance provided by Natural Transitions, to take action now.

House Bill 1202 takes Colorado from no licensing of funeral directors to the introduction of a bill that would bring some of the most stringent, restrictive funeral legislation in the US.  Provisions force families to use mortuaries where they would rather not.

It restricts their ability to care for their loved-ones at death, and it limits the resources available to them to receive education and support to care for their own dead, personally, affordably, and ecologically.

It also introduces such onerous qualification requirements for funeral directors that many would-be alternative funeral providers won't enter this profession that is ripe for change.

We are extremely concerned. This bill has the backing of the Colorado Funeral Directors' Association, but consumer groups have not been courted for their input.  Josh Slocum of the Funeral Consumers' Alliance says the bill is "a thinly-veiled attempt by the CDFA (Colorado Funeral Directors' Association) to protect their turf, prestige, and profits."

It has passed through the Business and Labor committee and will come before the Appropriations Committee.

Visit our website for more information and what you can do to help.

You don't know what you've got until it is gone.

Searchable Online General Statutes

Colorado Revised Statutes

Resources Specific to Funeral Law

Funeral Service Board

Department of Public Health and Environment

In general, regulations promulgated by departments of health, such as required procedures in filing death certificates, must be followed by families caring for their own dead, while regulations promulgated by funeral service regulatory boards are binding only on funeral providers (but may affect home funerals indirectly to the extent that a family chooses to engage the limited services of licensed providers or in a few states is required to do so).

Please help us develop this section by emailing us with books or online sources specifically related to funeral law in Colorado.

Resources Specific to Home Funeral Laws

Please help us develop this section by emailing us with books or online sources specifically related to home funerals in Colorado. Or if there is none, write a summary document regarding your findings to share here! (See North Carolina and South Carolina for an example.)

Organizations and Individuals

Funeral Consumer Society of Colorado, a Funeral Consumers Alliance affiliate (external link). Because FCA chapters are composed of volunteers, their expertise and experience related to home funeral laws vary considerably from one to the next. All of them, however, welcome home funeral practitioners and advocates and are eager to learn from them. If you find that you are accumulating knowledge that is lacking in your closest chapter, why don't you volunteer to be its resource for funeral consumers on home funeral laws in your state?

Karen Van Vuuren is an information resource on home funerals in Colorado and is the inspiration behind Natural Transitions there.