South Dakota passes prenatal development education bill

The South Dakota state legislature has voted to pass House Bill 1313 regarding the education of students on "prenatal human growth and development." The bill now heads to the governor for his signature.

Key Takeaways:

• The South Dakota House passed the prenatal education bill on February 12 and the state Senate passed it on March 5.

• The bill calls for curriculum on human prenatal development to be included in schools, including a high-definition ultrasound and a high-quality computer-generated rendering of prenatal development.

• The bill now heads to the governor's desk.

The Details:

HB 1313 passed the state House on February 12 in a 52-10 vote. It passed the state Senate on Thursday in a 31-3 vote. It states:

"The South Dakota Board of Education Standards shall recommend resources for age-appropriate and research-based instruction in prenatal human growth and development. A school district shall use the resources recommended by the board in providing a health or science curriculum."

A Never Before Seen Look At Human Life In The Womb | Baby Olivia

Under the bill, the prenatal development curriculum would be used for age-appropriate students in grades K-12 and must include:

(1) A high-definition ultrasound video that shows the presence of the brain, heart, and other major organs as they appear at various stages of prenatal development; and

(2) A high-quality, computer-generated rendering or animation, or a high-definition ultrasound video that shows the progress of prenatal human development from fertilization through birth, noting significant moments in the progress of cellular growth and organ development.

Any video or computer-generated rendering or animation shown, as required by this section, must be at least three minutes in length.

The videos cannot include information from groups that commit or promote abortion or are affiliated with a group that does. The bill now heads to the desk of Governor Larry Rhoden.

Reality Check:

Learning about prenatal human development should be a standard part of student education.

Kate Makra of Right to Life Action Coalition of Ohio recently told The Cleveland Observer, “This is factual material. This is biology. If we teach life cycles of plants and animals, why aren’t we teaching [about] humans from conception?”

Yet some pro-abortion groups, including sex-ed leader SIECUS, oppose the inclusion of human prenatal development as part of student learning.

A Never-Before-Seen Look at Life’s First Moments | Baby Oliver

SIECUS states that students should receive "comprehensive, inclusive, and science-backed sex education," and supports the use of graphic sexual material as part of sex ed. Yet the group claims that it is Live Action's “Baby Olivia” (which some of the bills are named after) that has the “greatest potential for harm, especially in a post-Dobbs America,” because it would require students to be shown “stigmatizing and medically inaccurate fetal ultrasound videos as part of their sex education.”

The Bottom Line:

Though some have leveled criticism at "Baby Olivia," alleging that it is "deceptive" and/or anti-abortion propaganda, neither Olivia nor its companion prenatal development video, "Baby Oliver," discuss abortion.