Background: The Tennessee State Capitol stands on Jan. 8, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Inset: Animated fetal development ‘Meet Baby Olivia’ clip from anti-abortion group Live Action depicts an imagined rendering of a fetus reaching out to press its hand against a translucent womb (via YouTube Live Action screengrab).
In Tennessee, whether parents like it or not, Republican Gov. Bill Lee is poised to sign a law that will make public school children watch an animated video on fetal development backed by an anti-abortion group, or some equivalent of it, after lawmakers in the state vaulted the legislation to passage.
The law, known as the Baby Olivia Act, first passed in the state’s House in March on a 67-23 vote and then sailed through the Senate last week, 21-6. The roughly three-minute animation created by the nonprofit anti-abortion group Live Action bills itself as a “Never Before Seen Look at Human Life in the Womb” and would be shown to public school children as part of the state’s family health curriculum.
Among other features in the video, it depicts sperm fertilizing an ovum and it is here that it declares: “This is the moment that life begins. A new human being has come into existence.” The animated video states that a fetus can recognize lullabies in the womb and depicts a purported fetus at 27 weeks gazing through a translucent womb while pressing its fingers against it. The shadow of the mother’s fingers press back.
The law sponsored by Republican state Rep. Gino Bulso requires “a family life curriculum that directly or indirectly addresses human growth, human development, or human sexuality to include the presentation of a high-quality, computer-generated animation or high-definition ultrasound of at least three minutes in duration that shows the development of the brain, heart, sex organs, and other vital organs in early fetal development, such as ‘Meet Baby Olivia,’ a high-quality, computer-generated animation developed by Live Action that shows the process of fertilization and the stages of human development inside the uterus,” according its text.
It was amended before heading to the governor’s desk though to delete the requirement that “sex organs” be included in the animation or in a high-definition ultrasound of at least three minutes.
According to The Tennessean, Republican lawmakers in the state’s senate rejected Democratic-led amendments that would have made watching the clip optional for students instead of mandatory. Another amendment that would have stopped schools from showing it without explicit consent from a parent or guardian was also voted down by Republicans. Amendments that would have described the anti-abortion group’s video as “medically inaccurate” were dismissed too.
The local news outlet reported that in Tennessee, the teen birthrate is higher than 19 per 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 19. That figure also represents roughly 82% of all counties in the state, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A spokesperson for Lee did not immediately return a request for comment to Law&Crime on Monday.
Medical experts have slammed the video as pro-life propaganda, failing to accurately describe or display the process in which an embryo develops into a fetus and then to an infant. In one segment of the video, just as an egg is being fertilized, a narrator ‘s voice announces: “This is the moment life begins.”
This is not a medical fact. Sperm must fertilize an ovum and then that fertilized ovum, or egg, must implant itself into uterine lining.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or ACOG, released a statement last month as the law was snaking its way through the state, calling it a video “designed to manipulate the emotions of viewers rather than to share evidence-based, scientific information about embryonic and fetal development.”
The 3-minute video is riddled with disinformation, according to the ACOG, but the bill’s supporters, like Republican Sen. Janice Bowling, they don’t see it that way.
Calling the animation “scientifically accurate,” Bowling stressed to CNN that this was just “one of the choices” teachers would have to use as part of the family health curriculum in public schools in the state.
Other critics of the video have pointed out it’s the sequencing, or timing of the fetal depictions are off — where the video shows a fetus at 11 weeks, one professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Daniel Grossman noted that it is actually a rendering of a 13-week old fetus.
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