28-02-2025
Baby Olivia Act hits another bump in Arkansas Senate Committee
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — A bill in the Arkansas legislature that would require public schools to show a human development bill to elementary students failed in committee on Wednesday after more than an hour of debate.
House Bill 1180 was filed on Jan. 21 by Rep. Mary Bentley (R-Perryville), sponsored by Sen. Clint Penzo (R-Springdale) and co-sponsored by nearly three dozen other lawmakers.
After the bill hit a bump in the Senate Education Committee on Feb. 10, Bentley presented an amended version that would require a 'human fetal growth and development discussion' beginning in sixth grade instead of fifth and permitting the Arkansas Department of Education's Division of Elementary and Secondary Education to develop a list of approved videos.
The ADE's list would include the 'Meet Baby Olivia' video. The three-minute video depicts fertilization and the stages of in-utero development of a computer-generated fetus.
However, the bill has received backlash from other lawmakers and the public.
Bill filed to show Baby Olivia gestation video in Arkansas health classrooms
Brittaney Stockton, a mother of three daughters, spoke against the bill during the Senate Education Committee meeting on Wednesday. Stockton advocated for broader sexual education as she said it could help protect children from sexual abuse.
Others spoke in support of the bill, with one saying it would be 'an act of advantage discrimination' to not allow children to understand the process of human development.
Bentley said the bill is about 'teaching children the basic facts about human development [in an] approachable way.'
The bill failed on Wednesday due to not receiving the five votes it would need to advance out of the eight-person committee.
HB1180 is on the Senate Education Committee's regular agenda for March 3.
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