The Tennessee Senate passed House Bill 2435 on Thursday, which would require public schools in the state to include an approved prenatal child development ultrasound or computer animation as part of the state-required age-appropriate family life curriculum. It lists Live Action’s “Meet Baby Olivia” as an example of a computer animation that would meet the bill’s requirements but does not specifically require “Baby Olivia” to be shown.
The Senate passed the bill in a vote of 21 to 6 after it previously passed the Tennessee House on March 18 in a 67-23 vote. The bill requires that schools show a “high-quality, computer generated animation” or “high-definition” ultrasound that shows fetal development of the heart, brain, and other vital organs.
Yet, because the “Baby Olivia” video was created by Live Action, Tennessee Democrats have questioned its neutrality and medical accuracy. According to The Tennessean, state legislators who oppose the bill have called the educational video of human development in the womb an effort “to advance the idea that fetuses are people and that abortion care is wrong.” An amendment sponsored by Senate Minority Caucus Chair London Lamar (D) would have required schools to give a disclaimer telling students that the video is “political propaganda” and “medically inaccurate,” but that amendment failed.
A similar bill was enacted in North Dakota last year, and others have also been introduced in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Iowa. The bills, along with the “Baby Olivia” video itself, have come under heavy attack from pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood and the abortion-supporting media.
The Associated Press called “Baby Olivia” a pro-life ‘political move’ and used pro-abortion sources to try to discredit the video, which follow the start of a human being at fertilization up to just before birth. But “Baby Olivia” has the backing of medical experts and was created using detailed “award-winning content” from the Endowment for Human Development (EHD). EHD is a self-described “nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health science education and public health” which is “committed to neutrality regarding all controversial bioethical issues.” Its prenatal development video is distributed by National Geographic.
Pro-abortion groups have taken issue with Baby Olivia’s method of dating a pregnancy, because it begins with fertilization instead of the last menstrual period (LMP) — known as gestational age — which is often used elsewhere and which adds approximately two weeks. LMP is the dating method typically used by OB/GYNs to estimate a due date for the baby. However, for the purpose of a video on human development, it is logical to start at that human being’s fertilization, not from the mother’s menstrual period an estimated two weeks before. As stated by MedScape, using LMP or gestational age to date a pregnancy “assumes that conception occurs on day 14 of the cycle. The fallacy in this assumption is that the time of ovulation varies greatly in relation to the menstrual cycle, both from cycle to cycle and individual to individual. Basing GA [gestational age] on the LMP tends to result in an overestimation.” (emphasis added)
Abortion advocates have also taken issue with the details about the heartbeat shared in the “Baby Olivia” video, mainly the fact that the human heart first begins to beat at approximately three weeks post-fertilization. The Louisville Courier Journal quoted Dr. Daniel Grossman, an abortionist and abortion industry insider, as its expert source to argue that the “Baby Olivia” video’s depiction of when the heart begins to beat is inaccurate. Neither Grossman nor the Journal offered any sort of proof as to why it is allegedly inaccurate, however.
The Tennessee bill will now head to the desk of Gov. Bill Lee. Lee has not commented on this bill, but he has made his opposition to abortion known.
