(LifeSiteNews) — Iowa’s schoolchildren must now watch pro-life fetal development films in school.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has signed into law a measure requiring public school students in grades 5 to 12 to have prenatal development education. This will include watching videos that show the growth of embryos within the womb, revealing the undeniable humanity of yet-to-be born children.
Iowa joins Indiana, Idaho, Tennessee, North Dakota, and Kansas which have passed similar laws. Eighteen other states have introduced similar legislation this year.
Live Action president and founder Lila Rose celebrated the state’s pro-life decision, noting that “Baby Olivia, an animated video showing each stage of embryonic development in the womb, would be one resource that could be used to fulfill the new state requirements.”
“The passage and signing of Baby Olivia laws … mark a historic triumph for education, truth, and the sanctity of human life,” said Rose in a statement last month after the bill had cleared both houses of the state legislature.
“This legislation ensures that students in these states will see medically accurate, visually compelling educational materials in public school including resources like Live Action’s Baby Olivia video, which illustrates the humanity of the preborn child from the earliest stages of development,” she continued.
Rose called on every state across the nation “to build on this foundation with bold policies that further protect the preborn and support mothers and families, creating a culture where every life is embraced and every child is protected.”
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Live Action released Baby Olivia in 2021. This beautiful depiction of life in the womb is medically and scientifically accurate and has been reviewed by medical experts. The video has been viewed nearly 10 million times.
“From a single-celled human to a baby with a beating heart, brainwaves, fingers, and toes, Olivia shows the remarkable beauty of a unique life within the womb,” Live Action explains. “With scientific accuracy, this video depicts the moment human life begins and beyond to show the humanity of preborn children throughout each stage of human development.”
John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, thinks that educating young people on fetal development could convince them that life begins at conception.
“Why are we not teaching that to children?” Mize asked in a Christianity Today report. He cited a study that says the majority of biologists agree with the claim. “Nowhere in the content in most public school education are you going to receive anything that talks about human dignity in the womb and the fact that it is a human being.”
RELATED: Indiana passes law requiring students to see video showing unborn baby developing in womb
As previously reported by LifeSiteNews’ Calvin Freiburger, long-settled biological criteria and mainstream medical textbooks affirm that a living human being, structurally and genetically distinct from his or her mother, is created upon fertilization and is present throughout the pregnancy – regardless of whether that embryonic human is being artificially sustained outside of the womb.
This is not in serious dispute: in 2019, University of Chicago Department of Comparative Human Development graduate Steve Jacobs found that 96 percent of more than 5,500 biologists he surveyed agreed with this, despite overwhelmingly identifying as “liberal,” “pro-choice,” and Democrats, and a majority identifying as “non-religious.”
The dignity of unborn children in the womb is also declared by Sacred Scripture and proclaimed by the Catholic Church.
Despite the unambiguous nature of the facts, however, the United States remains far from a pro-life consensus. While polls consistently show that Americans reject the extremes of the abortion-on-demand lobby, Gallup, Pew, and Marist have all found for the past several years that overall, growing majorities identify as “pro-choice.”
Mandatory fetal development education could play a vital role in reversing that trend, by putting the reality of preborn life before young Americans at a scale far wider than voluntary pro-life activism and outreach can cover.
RELATED: Idaho Senate passes bill requiring schools to show realistic videos of unborn babies’ development
