A bill that requires that schools show a fetal development video in classrooms and names one produced by a pro-life advocacy group passed the Tennessee House of Representatives last week and is making its way through the Senate.
HB2435/SB2767 would require that the family life curriculum in Tennessee public schools include the presentation of a “high quality, computer-generated animation or high-definition ultrasound of at least three minutes in duration.” The bill names a video called “Meet Baby Olivia.”
Family life curriculum is an abstinence-based curriculum required in counties (including Davidson County) where the teen birth rate exceeds 19.5 per 1,000 females between ages 15 and 19. The three-minute video in question was created by Live Action, a pro-life advocacy group, and released in 2021.
In the “Meet Baby Olivia” debate, Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi takes issue with the content and tone, while a medical professional interviewed by Scene sister publication the Nashville Post cites flaws in the fetal development timeline. Meanwhile, one legislator doubles down and another argues that full accuracy is not necessarily imperative.
Local obstetrician-gynecologist Nicole Schlechter says the most egregious issue in the video is how it measures the timeline of pregnancy. The video measures from conception, while medical professionals count from the first day of the last menstrual period. This could cause confusion for patients, she says, as the video states that a fetus could survive outside the womb at 20 weeks, which would be 22 to 23 weeks measured by the last missed period.
Let's take a look at 'Meet Baby Olivia,' the shady anti-abortion video Republicans want to make Tennessee's kids watch
A 2022 study that analyzed outcomes of about 10,000 infants found 30 percent of infants born at 22 weeks survived while 55.8 percent survived at 23 weeks. Just one has survived at 21 weeks, breaking a world record.
“I would love for more babies to survive, but I don’t want to give people false hope,” Schlechter says. “That is what this video is doing, inadvertently. They’re trying to ‘teach’ human development but they’re just teaching false embryology.”
The video also claims a heartbeat can be detected at three weeks after fertilization. Schelechter says there are pulsations in the structure that will become the heart at three weeks after fertilization, but the heart is not formed until about six weeks (nine weeks after the last menstrual cycle). Per the video, she says it is a stretch to say that a baby is “playing,” but it is moving reflexively at 11 weeks since conception.
Schlechter points out that the video is aesthetically pleasing, with a mesmerizing voice actress, a contrast from the graphic images that got Live Action banned from social media sites.
“If you took that same animator and even that same voiceover with scientists and educators — I think human development, embryology and reproduction should be taught in school," she says. “That’s really important.”
Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi, took issue with the “cartoonish” nature of the film in a March 20 press conference, though she did not detail the organization’s alleged medical inaccuracies.
State Rep. Gino Bulso takes questions from constituents during a March 15, 2024, town hall at the John P. Holt Brentwood Library
“‘Baby Olivia’ is a fake ultrasound video that depicts fetal development in an unscientific and emotionally manipulative way by a radical anti-abortion organization,” Coffield says in a press release. “It parrots the same lies and misinformation that anti-abortion groups and lawmakers used to impose a total abortion ban on Tennessee.”
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), who, speaking with a reporter for Scene sister publication The News, sought to discredit the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a membership organization with 60,000 members.
“Recognize that the ACOG is a pro-abortion advocacy group,” Bulso told The News. “They say that on their website. They say ‘abortion is essential health care’ under a column called ‘advocacy.’ If someone is going to say something is inaccurate, obviously it’s incumbent on them to point out what is inaccurate.”
Bulso acknowledged the discrepancy between counting from the day of conception instead of counting from the last missed period to The News, but at a March 22 Williamson Inc. panel discussion he doubled down.
“I think that's going to be to the benefit of all public school students across the state, because it's 100 percent scientific, and it's just a beautiful illustration of how life begins, and certainly should form part of any family life curriculum,” Bulso said.
Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) a physician, voted for the bill. He told The News he did not know Live Action was behind the video. North Dakota passed a similar bill in 2023 and Iowa, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri are fielding bills referencing ‘Baby Olivia’ this year.
“It does give a good general description, I think," says Hensley. "Whether it’s exactly accurate about what happens at certain times or not, it may not be."
“Whether all of the exact details are correct, I don't think that is important," he adds. "Schools can use other depictions if they need to. They don’t have to use that one. If there’s one that’s more accurate they can use it. ... Whether the times are exactly right, I don’t think that is important because children aren’t going to be looking at that part.”
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
