PHOENIX (LifeSiteNews) — The Arizona Senate has voted 16-10 to pass legislation requiring fetal development education in public schools, though it faces an uncertain future.
HB 2830 requires the state board of education to “adopt academic standards in the area of science that require instruction on fetal and prenatal human development that is…age-appropriate, factual and focused on only prenatal human development as a biological process.” It forbids including “instruction on sexual activity, sexual behavior, contraception, abortion procedures or reproductive decision-making.”
“We know that when people understand when human life begins, they’re much more likely to be in favor of protecting human life,” Live Action’s Noah Brandt told The College Fix.
“Every medical textbook will tell you that,” he continued, adding that children “love to hear about what prenatal development is like. You know, is the baby’s heart beating? Is the baby, you know, can you feel the baby kick? It’s incredible. And so I think that it makes a ton of sense just straight from an education perspective that this should be being taught in schools.”
The bill has now cleared both chambers of the state legislature, but a key difference between the two versions has yet to be resolved. The House bill included language excluding abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood from health education entirely; the Senate version removed it.
Either way, HB 2830 would then go to the desk of pro-abortion Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs, who is likely to veto it. A two-thirds vote would be required to override her veto.
Thirteen states ban most abortions starting at conception; another five ban it once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (around six weeks), with additional states imposing a range of later restrictions.
But the abortion lobby works feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states havens for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and embedding abortion “rights” in state constitutions, whether via activist lawsuits or state constitutional amendments.
With some polls showing Americans trending away from life, institutionalized prenatal education could be key in turning the tide, by putting the the clear-cut scientific facts and medical consensus of when life begins before young Americans at a scale far wider than voluntary pro-life activism and outreach can cover.