A cemetery authority or licensed funeral director or a licensed hospital or its authorized personnel may permit or assist, and a physician may perform, an autopsy of any remains in its or his custody if the decedent, prior to his death, authorizes an autopsy in his will or other written instrument, or upon the receipt of a written authorization, telegram, or a verbal authorization obtained by telephone and recorded on tape or other recording device, from a person representing himself to be any of the following:
This section shall not authorize the obtaining of a verbal authorization by telephone and recorded on tape or other recording device for an autopsy of a deceased person if it is made known to the physician who is to perform the autopsy that the deceased was, at the time of his death, a member of a religion, church, or denomination which relies solely upon prayer for the healing of disease.
Ca. Health and Saf. Code § 7113