Ohio’s bill is nearly identical to legislation proposed and passed in Arkansas earlier this year.
H.B. 1180, The Baby Olivia Act, by Rep. Mary Bentley (R — Perryville) and Sen. Clint Penzo (R — Springdale) would have let public school students in Arkansas see an ultrasound recording and watch the Baby Olivia video as part of sex education and human development courses.
Fortunately, the Arkansas Legislature did eventually pass S.B. 450 by Sen. Breanne Davis (R — Russellville) and Rep. Kendra Moore (R — Lincoln). The law does not reference the Baby Olivia video, but it does let public school students see a recording of a high-definition ultrasound and learn important facts about how unborn children develop in the womb.
Ultrasound images help demonstrate that unborn children are human beings.
Very few medical advancements have done more to change hearts and minds on abortion than ultrasound technology. In fact, research has shown that some women are less likely to have an abortion if they see an ultrasound image of their unborn child.
With that in mind, it’s good for states like Arkansas to pass laws teaching students about unborn children.
Below is the “Meet Baby Olivia” video by Live Action that Ohio House Bill 485 would let public schools show to students.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
A new report from our friends at the Charlotte Lozier Institute shows pro-life pregnancy resource centers provided hundreds of millions of dollars in goods and services to families last year.
Pregnancy resource centers provide material support to women facing unplanned pregnancies.
Many offer everything from pregnancy tests and ultrasounds to adoption referrals and parenting classes to maternity clothes, diapers, and formula — all typically free of charge.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute report looked at the work of 2,775 pregnancy centers nationwide. The report found these centers provided over $452 million in medical care, education services, material goods, and other types of support in 2024.
The report also found pregnancy resource centers served one million new clients last year. All of that is great news.
Since the 2022 Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade, state legislatures around the country have begun appropriating funding for pregnancy help organizations, because they are so effective when it comes to helping women and families.
Lawmakers in Arkansas have also voted to provide grant funding for pregnancy resource centers.
In April, Governor Sanders signed Act 1006 of 2025, by the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, providing $2 million for grants to pregnancy help organizations — including pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies, and other charities that provide material support to women with unplanned pregnancies.
The State of Arkansas has funded this grant program every year since 2022 to help promote alternatives to abortion.
In July, DFA received 39 applications for grant funding under the program. However, the department has not taken any action on the applications and reportedly does not have a timeline for awarding grants to the pregnancy help organizations.
Now that abortion is generally prohibited in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother, the state needs to make abortion unthinkable and unnecessary. As the Charlotte Lozier Institute’s report shows, supporting the work of pregnancy help organizations is one way we can do that.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
In 2016, Canada legalized Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAiD. Less than a decade later, the practice accounts for one in 20 of all deaths in the country. How quickly the deadly practice expanded underscores how, anywhere it has been legalized, the “right to die” soon becomes the “duty to die.”
Assisted suicide is the definition of a slippery slope. Once passed, these laws always expand. In Canada, the law was recently amended to allow anyone with a mental illness, such as PTSD or depression, to obtain life-ending drugs. In the Netherlands, government surveys recently uncovered “thousands of cases” in which doctors “intentionally administered lethal injections to patients without a request,” including “children, the demented,” and “the mentally ill.”
It was also in 2016 that Colorado voters approved the End-of-life Options Act, to allow physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to adult residents with a so-called “terminal” diagnosis. Last year, the governor signed legislation to also allow some registered nurses to prescribe the lethal drugs and to reduce the waiting period from 15 to seven days. This year, a pair of lawsuits demonstrate just how slippery the slope is here, as well.
One of the pending lawsuits seeks to expand Colorado law even further. The euphemistically titled group Compassion & Choices, formerly known as the “Hemlock Society,” is challenging the residency requirement, arguing that it is “discriminatory” to prevent out-of-state residents from receiving drugs for assisted suicide. If this lawsuit is successful, Colorado would become a “suicide tourism” destination, allowing individuals anywhere in the United States to “shop for death.”
The other Colorado lawsuit seeks to curb the disturbing trend of prescribing lethal doses to patients with severe eating disorders. Under the guise of “terminal anorexia,” some doctors claim that, due to long-term effects of malnutrition, there are patients who lack the will to live and “simply cannot continue the fight.”
However, according to Denver-based psychiatrist Dr. Patricia Westmoreland, anorexia is primarily a psychiatric condition and is treatable, not terminal. Even more, according to Dr. Westmoreland, “Patients suffering from extreme anorexia are not mentally healthy enough to make a decision with such dire consequences.”
Doctor-assisted death is always sold to the public with promises of safeguards, such as consent, but these safeguards are quickly compromised. So is the meaning of what is considered a “terminal” condition. Predictably, Colorado is following the same troubling global trends as everywhere else medicalized death has been legalized.
Behind the second lawsuit to challenge Colorado’s assisted-suicide law is a group of disability-rights advocates led by the Institute for Patients’ Rights. They claim the law inherently discriminates against people with disabilities by singling out individuals with disabilities or medical conditions who struggle with depression and other mental health issues, including suicidal ideation. Rather than offering mental health care and suicide prevention services, as it does for non-disabled people who express a wish to die, Colorado offers those with disabilities the “option” of killing themselves. In effect, Colorado law tells people with disabilities that their lives are less valuable and not worth preserving.
At the center of their case is the story of Jane Allen, a 29-year-old woman who struggled with anorexia. In the midst of her mental health crisis, a Colorado doctor diagnosed her with “terminal anorexia” and issued her a lethal prescription. Thankfully, Jane’s father intervened, and a court ordered the drugs removed from her possession, saving Jane’s life. Her health improved, and she was able to live independently before she tragically died of a heart condition a couple years later.
Jane’s case illustrates the problem with assisted-suicide laws like Colorado’s. These laws prey on the most vulnerable, poison family relationships, and corrupt the medical profession. Rather than embracing the call to heal, doctors become dispensers of death. Even worse, they are forced to decide whose life is worth living and whose isn’t. This is not “care.” Nor is it “medicine.”
Every single life has inherent, eternal value. Lawmakers and medical professionals cannot change what the Creator has already decided. Christians must be clear on what is true about human value.
The slope of medicalized killing is slippery indeed. The safeguards cannot hold. Christians must pray for and push for laws that recognize the central truth that every human being, from conception to natural death, is made in God’s image and worthy of life. More importantly, believers must be discipled in this essential and consequential doctrine so that the unjust taking of life will never be accepted as normal, even where it is made legal.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Ian Speir.
Copyright 2025 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
