Ohio State Building. (Photo: David DeWitt, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Doctors, anti-abortion supporters and the mother spoke in favor of abortion a bill that would require public schools in Ohio showing students starting the third grade a film about fetal development.
Recently introduced state Rep. Melanie Miller, R–Ashland Ohio House Bill 485also known as the “Baby Olivia Enactment Act.”
Three minutes Check out the video with little Olivia produced by the anti-abortion company Live Action, it depicts fertilization and fetal development.
Abortion rights supporters call the video misleading and faulty.
The minimum bill required is to show a Baby Olivia video or an ultrasound video that is at least three minutes long.
Eleven people testified during Tuesday’s Ohio House Education Committee hearing, and five people testified in person.
“The educational film Baby Olivia provides clear, scientific and visually compelling evidence of fetal development and humanity,” said Dr. Bill Lile, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist also known as the “ProLife Doctor,” during his testimony. “These babies in the womb are not abstract ideas – they are living, growing human beings, and they are patients.”
Abortion is legal in Ohio until the 22nd week of pregnancy. Ohio voters passed such a resolution in 2023 added protections for abortion care and reproductive rights to the state constitution.
Dr. Alicia Thompson, a certified obstetrician-gynecologist, stated that the film Baby Olivia shows that human life begins at the moment of fertilization.
“The film illustrates this reality in a scientifically sound and accessible way for students, using clear visual milestones to show the beauty and complexity of early human life,” she said during her testimony.
Planned Parenthood Calls ‘Baby Olivia’ Music Video ‘faulty, misleading and manipulative”
Ohio Right to Life Action Coalition President Kate Makra said, “This video is medically accurate.”
Planned Parenthood notes that the video counts the age of the embryo from conception, which doctors do not do; claims that a fetal heartbeat can be detected in the sixth week of pregnancy, even though the heart has not formed, and that the sound actually resembles an electrical fluttering, in its place, which will later form a heart; and it inaccurately represents the appearance of the embryo, mischaracterizes its activity, and omits critical information about the point at which it can survive outside the uterus.
The Ohio bill would require the film to be shown to students every year from third through 12th grade, beginning with the 2026-27 school year.
Country Libertine. Sean BrennanD-Parma, interrogated by showing the same video to a third-grade student and a high school senior.
“Is it appropriate to show the same film to elementary, middle and high school children?” Brennan– asked the former teacher. “Wouldn’t it be a better idea to give the district much more flexibility to tailor the video to students’ developmental abilities?”
State Representative Gayle ManningR-Avon, spent most of her career as a third-grade teacher.
“I can’t imagine explaining to my kids what’s happening in the video, when in third grade a lot of kids have no idea,” she said. “I think this is something that parents should have talked about before I did as a teacher.”
Makra agreed that parents should talk to their children about fetal development, but said this does not always happen.
“I think a lot of parents don’t do that, and that’s why we find that there are so many unplanned pregnancies,” she said. “I think even a small child would be able to look at the images and understand what is being conveyed in the video.”
Ohio students deserve to learn the science behind conception, Makra said.
“Ohio’s science curriculum requires teaching animal and plant reproduction in first grade – seed growth and frog cycles – yet inexplicably omits human prenatal development,” she said in her testimony. “If we teach the life cycles of plants and animals, why don’t we teach humans from conception?”
Former Ohio Republican Jena Powell said the bill was educational, not political.
“This gives young Ohioans access to scientific, fact-based information about the earliest stages of human life,” she said, reflecting on watching an ultrasound of her own child. “By seeing what happens in the womb — the heartbeat, movement, development — students will gain a deeper understanding of biology, life and the impact their choices can have on others.”
To date, more than 20 other states have introduced similar bills, and Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, Tennessee, Iowa and Indiana have passed similar bills.
Follow the OCJ reporter Megan Henry in Bluesky.
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