Sixty years ago, Life magazine showed the world what a baby in the womb looks like.
The 18-week-old unborn child on the front page of the April 30, 1965, edition captivated readers and quickly sold out. The photo essay inside, showing portraits from conception through all the stages of development, helped many see the humanity of the unborn.
Pro-life advocates in Iowa hope a new law in their state will do the same.
Last month, the Iowa legislature passed a bill requiring prenatal development education in public schools. The state joins five others—Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, and Tennessee—that now require teachers to show classes the process of fertilization, the growth of an embryo, and the development of organs.
In Iowa, students in grades 5 to 12 will be required to watch ultrasounds or computer-generated videos, like the one offered for free by the pro-life group Live Action.
“This legislation ensures that students in these states will see medically accurate, visually compelling educational materials in public school including resources like Live Action’s ‘Baby Olivia’ video,” Live Action’s president and founder, Lila Rose, said in a statement. According to Rose, the video “illustrates the humanity of the preborn child.”
Kristi Judkins, executive director of Iowa Right to Life, believes the law will give students information that will shape the choices they make in the future. It’s information she wishes she had learned in school. It might have prevented her from getting an abortion more than 40 years ago.
“I believe it would have 100 percent influenced my decision,” she said. “It’s fascinating when you think of just the creativity and the intricacy of the nervous system and the function of the heart. And when those things develop in an unborn baby, it’s just amazing.”
The shift in Judkins’s views came slowly. She said God used education about pregnancy to show her what she had not understood and change her heart.
“When I began to learn all of the intricacies around fetal development,” she said, “it became such a passion of mine to make sure that I conveyed the enthusiasm and the truth about what life developing—being fearfully and wonderfully made—truly means.”
Iowa Right to Life lobbied for the law. An early version of the bill faced criticism over Live Action’s “Baby Olivia” video. Critics say it calculates milestones based on fertilization rather than from the first day of the mother’s last menstrual cycle, which is the standard starting point. As a result, milestones appear two weeks earlier than they do on the timelines commonly used. Others say the pro-life animation is not as accurate as it should be.
The first draft of the legislation specifically required teachers to show students a video comparable to the “Baby Olivia” video. To advance the bill, Iowa lawmakers omitted references specifically to the “Baby Olivia” video.
“The key part was making sure that ‘Baby Olivia’ as a video was an option to be able to play to demonstrate the humanity of the unborn, in addition to other options that are out there,” Judkins said. “There are bipartisan organizations that focus on embryology, and they have wonderful materials.”
The bill has now been signed by governor Kim Reynolds.
Judkins believes education inside and outside the schools is key to the future of the pro-life movement. She hopes videos about prenatal development will persuade more people to identify with the pro-life position.
A recent Gallup poll found that 51 percent of Americans now identify as “pro-choice.” Sixty percent said the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and allowing states to regulate abortion was a bad thing.
John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, said that to make more political progress, pro-life groups will have to prioritize persuasion.
“How do we take the polls and move them 5 to 10 percent in the direction for life?” he said.
Mize believes education on fetal development could have a significant impact, convincing more people that life begins at conception.
“Why are we not teaching that to children?” Mize said, citing a study that says the majority of biologists agree with the claim. “Nowhere in the content in most public school education are you going to receive anything that talks about human dignity in the womb and the fact that it is a human being.”
Pro-life groups in some states are not working on changing school curriculum but nonetheless agree that education is a top priority. Louisiana Right to Life policy director Erica Inzina said one of her group’s programs focuses on educating students.
“It’s … all voluntary and something that students sign up to do, but we feel like it’s very important to counteract the misinformation and the false narrative that they’re otherwise being bombarded with,” Inzina said. “We know that our opposition is very good about wording and promoting their cause in a way that is captivating to young people. So we do a lot to try to counteract that.”
Pulse, a part of the Louisiana organization which includes a summer camp and weekend events throughout the year, teaches young people to engage with issues of human dignity, become pro-life advocates, and help women considering abortion to find resources that could help them carry their pregnancies to term.
Education, Inzina said, can transform culture.
“The goal … is that people would respect and value life so much and then also have access to the resources that are needed to support life so much that the concept of taking a life would be just absolutely something people wouldn’t even consider,” she said.
“We don’t just want to make abortion unavailable; we want to make it unthinkable.”
