On Tuesday, Republicans on an Iowa House subcommittee voted to advance a bill that would mandate K-12 students receive instruction on fetal development based on the work of an anti-abortion group.
HF 2031 would require the health curriculum in both public and accredited private elementary, middle and high schools to include a “high-definition ultrasound video, at least three minutes in duration, showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs, and other vital organs in early fetal development,” as well as a “high-quality, computer-generated rendering or animation, comparable to the Meet Baby Olivia video developed by Live Action.”
Live Action is a Virginia-based anti-abortion organization that is working to ban abortion nationwide. Its animated short Meet Baby Olivia contains false and highly disputed claims, including the notion that conception is “the moment that life begins” and that a heartbeat can be detected just 22 days after fertilization (in reality, it’s closer to 70 days).
“Why would we subject Iowa students to a video for human growth and development ripe with medically inaccurate information?” Angela Caulk, representing the Family Planning Counsel of Iowa, asked during the subcommittee meeting.
“We believe that access to medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education is of the utmost importance — of which this is not,” Mazie Stilwell, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa, told the subcommittee. “And frankly, as a parent of a kindergartener, the idea of showing this propaganda video next year really boggles my mind. I’m struggling to understand how on one hand we are banning books, and on the other hand, we are prescribing anti-abortion propaganda.”
Connie Ryan, executive director of the Iowa Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, called the bill “nothing but a political and religious agenda — forced indoctrination of Iowa’s children and youth.”
“You have every right to your religious beliefs and to teach your children whatever you like,” Ryan said. “You do not have the right to force your religious ideology onto all Iowa children and families, taking away choice for all other parents in Iowa.”
Ryan Benn disputed the idea that anti-abortion material that would be mandated by HF 2031 had a religious component when he addressed the subcommittee.
“The humanity of an unborn child isn’t based on any sort of religion,” Benn, policy director for The Family Leader, Iowa’s largest rightwing evangelical political organization, said. “It’s just a scientific fact.”
Amber Williams, treasurer of the Polk County chapter of Moms for Liberty also spoke in favor of the bill, telling the subcommittee she wished the proposed curriculum involving the ultrasound and an animated film like Meet Baby Olivia had been part of her high school experience.
Shellie Flockhart, who described herself as a concerned parent, said she supported the bill because the health curriculum at her son’s school “went over anal and oral, it went over all the STDs, pictures of the STDs, just absolutely everything except for the development of baby.”
Flockhart is the vice chair of the Dallas County chapter of Moms for Liberty.
Dave Daughton, government relations director for School Administrators of Iowa and a representative for Rural School Advocates of Iowa, said his organization weren’t taking a position yet on the content that HF 2031 mandates, but objected to the mandate itself.
“We don’t feel like it’s legislators’ responsibility to determine what things are being done in classrooms specifically,” Daughton said.
Rep. Craig Johnson, a Republican from Independence, told Daughton that legislators “come down here and do mandates every day.”
Johnson and his fellow Republican, Rep. Anne Osmundson of Volga, voted to advance the bill. Democratic Rep. Molly Buck of Ankeny voted against it.
HF 2031 now goes to the House Education Committee, which has scheduled a hearing on the bill for Tuesday.