Donna Peizer and Akhila Murphy are death doulas—people who educate families on old-fashioned, private, undertaker-free care of the dead. Like we used to do.
The California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau doesn’t like that, and wants to shut them down for “unlicensed practice of funeral service.”
Peizer and Murphy aren’t going to take it, so they’re suing the state of California.
Be sure to register for our October 7-9, 2022, virtual conference to hear Donna, Akhila, and attorney Jeff Rowes discuss the case.
On Valentine’s Day morning four years ago, a group of end-of-life doulas arrived at the Northern California home of Barbara Hazilla just hours after she died.
The volunteers cleansed Barbara’s body, used dry ice to help slow decomposition and then wrapped her body in a shroud of scarves and blankets.
“Barbara told me that when she died, she wanted to be undisturbed for three days,” Marya Hazilla, 73, said. “The first thing I asked was, ‘Is that even legal?’”
