Life – Family Council

Here is One of the Educational Videos “Baby Olivia Act” Would Let Arkansas Students See

Mar 4, 2025Jerry CoxLifeArkansas Legislature, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life, Video

H.B. 1180, the Baby Olivia Act by Rep. Mary Bentley (R — Perryville) and Sen. Clint Penzo (R — Springdale) ensures public schools show students a recording of a high-definition ultrasound video that is at least three minutes long as part of sex-education and human growth and development education courses.

It also lets students see a video like Live Action’s computer-animated “Meet Baby Olivia” video that teaches about human development from conception to birth.

The Baby Olivia Act passed with overwhelming support in the Arkansas House last month, but so far the Senate Education Committee has rejected this good bill.

You can actually see video footage of the committee failing to pass H.B. 1180 here.

The Arkansas Surgeon General, pro-life OB/GYNs, and various pro-life groups and leaders in the state support the Baby Olivia Act.

Pro-abortion groups like the Arkansas Abortion Support Network, For AR People, and the liberal medical organization ACOG oppose the measure.

The Democratic Party of Arkansas has even gone so far as to claim the bill would force students to watch “pro-life propaganda.”

But it’s important to note the videos that H.B. 1180 authorizes never even mention abortion. The bill simply makes it possible for schools to show students ultrasound recordings of an unborn child and a video like Live Action’s educational “Meet Baby Olivia” video that teaches about fetal development.

Ultrasound images of unborn babies and educational videos that teach about human development in the womb make it clear that unborn children are living human beings. In fact, ultrasound images arguably have done more than anything to demonstrate the humanity of the unborn.

H.B. 1180 is a good bill that would help public school students understand that unborn children are not simply a clump of cells.

Below is the “Meet Baby Olivia” video by Live Action. H.B. 1180 would let public schools show a video like this one to students as part of human fetal growth and development education.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Voluntary Sterilization on the Rise Post-Dobbs: Guest Column

May 28, 2024John StonestreetLifeAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

Last month, medical researchers published a paper analyzing data on “permanent contraceptive procedures” among 18- to 30-year-olds. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the landmark Dobbs case, the number of both men and women aged 18 to 30 who pursue sterilization—of their own accord, for no medically necessary reason—is on the rise. And more women are pursuing these procedures than men. In the month immediately following the Dobbs decision, the number of young women who got tubal ligations jumped by over 20%. Since then, the number of additional women getting tubal ligations each month has almost doubled.

And yet, “sterilization regret” is also on the rise. According to one study, women who undergo tubal ligations before age 30 are eight times more likely to undergo a reversal or pursue in vitro fertilization.

The legacy of Roe v. Wade was to reduce sex to entertainment and see kids as a burden. To build a better future after Roe, we must help the next generation discover the beauty of life.

Guest Post: There’s No Crisis in Aging

May 16, 2022John StonestreetLifeLife

Recently, Stanford Center on Longevity announced a project called the “New Map of Life.” “In the United States,” the authors write, “as many as half of today’s 5-year-olds can expect to live to the age of 100, and this once unattainable milestone may become the norm for newborns by 2050.”

The problem, the authors admit, is that we don’t know what to do with an extra 30 years: The “narrative of an ‘aging society’ seems to convey only a crisis.”

Reaching this 100-years-of-life milestone is, as one researcher put it, a “[breathtaking] package of human potential the world has never seen, unprecedented numbers of people with unprecedented capabilities, and significant desire to give back and leave the world better.”

Scripture agrees, calling old age “a crown of glory.” But that’s not because of how long it lasts or what is accomplished. It’s because there’s a “why” behind it all. As Stanford looks for technological and sociological benefits to longer lives, Christians can point to the Source of meaning for all of life, who faced and defeated death.

The more time we have to do that, the better.