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PMA advocates for you

Advocacy

Advocacy Wins

People's Memorial Association was founded in 1939 by a group of people in Seattle who realized death was a sacred moment of life and not a time for businesses to prioritize profits. For over 80 years, PMA has worked to protect people during the most vulnerable time of life. Our advocacy priorities are:

There are several ways we achieve these efforts including our Funeral Home Price Survey and our Cremation Financial Assistance Fund.

PMA is a founding member of the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA) to function as a unifying force for consumer advocacy at the federal 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, once again benefiting consumers (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.
  • 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 enabling consumers to get accurate price information from funeral homes. PMA and the FCA are now working to update the Funeral Rule to the 21st Century, by requiring funeral homes to post their pricing on their websites.
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