FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 3, 2025

Already this year, at least seven states – Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and West Virginia – have introduced legislation that would mandate anti-abortion disinformation such as Live Action’s “Baby Olivia” or similar videos be shown in schools.

“Live Action’s ‘Baby Olivia’ is positioned as an educational tool, but it’s actually just straight-up anti-abortion propaganda,” Reproaction Co-Founder, President and CEO Erin Matson said.

The video raises several false claims about the timeline of fetal development. The inaccuracies in the video caused the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists to denounce it.

A concept of  so-called ‘fetal personhood’ is central to the video. Anti-abortion groups use the notion of fetal personhood—which claims that life begins before the medical definition of pregnancy, and therefore that fertilized eggs should have full constitutional protections—to justify total abortion bans, criminal prosecution of people who have or perform abortions, and to deny people access to IVF and contraception.

Matson continued: “Live Action wants to put their hateful propaganda in front of kids. It’s indoctrination, and it has no place in our schools. Students deserve accurate, reliable information about their health and bodies, not anti-abortion disinformation.”

Reproaction has called on people to sign a petition to tell state lawmakers to vote against the Baby Olivia Act.

“We encourage you to sign this petition and share it with as many people as you can,” Matson said. “Tell your lawmakers to keep Live Action out of our public schools.”