School Board’s Will Furry Pushes Controversial Anti-Abortion ‘Olivia’ Video for Inclusion In Curriculum

Three weeks from Election Day, Flagler County School Board member Will Furry requested that the board consider that a controversial gestation video known as “Meet Baby Olivia,” produced by an anti-abortion group, be discussed at a future meeting for possible inclusion in the local curriculum. 

Furry made the request near the end of Tuesday evening’s School Board meeting after what appeared to be an orchestrated effort, led by a Tallahassee lobbyist, to push the district in that direction. Flagler County would be an outlier in the state if it did so. 

“I know that this community has made efforts to provide alternatives to support life and to support mothers in choosing something other than abortion,” Furry said, referring to a “safe haven” box’s installation at a local fire station last year, though the installation had nothing to do with abortion. “It’s clear to me that this community has a desire to continue that conversation. So I would like to ask that at our next board meeting, we review the baby Olivia fetal development video and see how that might fit into Flagler School’s curriculum.”

Twice in the last two years, a legislator attempted to require public school students to watch at least one-minute gestation videos. Twice the effort failed. But the legislator, Dana Trabulsi, had also expressly said she would work against the showing of the “Baby Olivia” video due to its inaccuracies and manipulative tone. 

Board Chair Christy Chong only asked that the video be sent to each board member ahead of time. Board members Janie Ruddy and Lauren Ramirez did not react, as the suggestion had immediately followed the unexpected but clearly planned public comments by half a dozen people. 

The local lobbying was led by Andrew Shirvell, a controversial anti-abortion activist who was previously associated with St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s “Respect Life Ministry” (he was a Palm Coast resident from 2013 to 2019) and who founded the  Tallahassee-based Florida Voice for the Unborn. 

Board members had been receiving emails from Shirvell or his group for a couple of weeks. “I don’t know if other board members have ties to the advocate from Tallahassee,” Ruddy said this morning. “I’ve already done some research on this video, but to be honest with this current board research data logic are not considered.” 

Shirvell said he was joined by about a dozen Flagler County residents to ask the board “to request approval from the Florida Department of Education to add the teaching of human embryologic and fetal development to the public school curriculum in this county,” as Sumter and Jefferson counties have. It would require a formal request to the state department. The School Board would have to approve that request. 

The curriculum includes playing the so-called “Baby Olivia” video. “Whether or not this board decides a video lesson like the one provided in the excellent Baby Olivia video is appropriate,” Shirvell said, “there must be meaningful lessons of some sort presented on human embryologic and fetal development from grades six through 12.”

In 2010, Shirvell was fired from his job as a deputy attorney general in Michigan after using his blog–which he wrote under an assumed name–to describe the then-then-University of Michigan student-body president as a “radical homosexual activist, racist, elitist & liar,” a “privileged pervert” who hosted “gay orgies,” was “Satan’s representative,” and who acted like a Nazi, among other characterizations. The University of Michigan’s newspaper described his blog as “undisguised bigotry.” 

In August 2012, following a jury verdict in federal court, Shirvell–who had refused to apologize to the student–was ordered to pay the student $4.5 million for maliciously defaming him, stalking him and intentionally inflicting emotional distress on him. The court “renewed” the judgment in 2022, for $3.5 million. 

Shirvell’s request was echoed by a few others, one of them said the videos “invite dialog, encourage critical thinking,” and “respect for life.” Wayne Friday said he sees the video as “nothing whatsoever, other than biological development of a of a baby in the womb,” and that “a lot of the women will embrace it. Maybe not so much the guys, but the women will embrace it and see how sacred it really is, because women are just special. I mean, so special to me. I believe women are just outrageously special.” Another resident said the video “ simply states biological and physiological facts.”

Not necessarily. 

Though described as a “never before seen look at human life in the womb,” the video is computer-generated. Inaccuracies and critical omissions abound. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists told the Associated Press in a 2024 email that the video is anti-abortion misinformation “designed to manipulate the emotions of viewers.” 

The video, a Planned Parenthood fact-check notes, fabricates the look of an “embryo” immediately after conception, though the amalgam of cells at that stage looks nothing like the computer-generated image of a fuzzy, shiny white ball resting on a cushy shag of pink. In fact, there is no visible embryo at that stage, when up to 60 percent of. It characterizes electrical signals, or flutters barely detectable by ultrasound in formative stages as a “fetal heartbeat” at three weeks.  

There is no mention that, according to UCLA-Health, “at least 30–60% of all conceptions will end within the first 12 weeks of gestation. Up to 50% of the time, the woman doesn’t even realize that she was ever pregnant.” There is no mention of the mother in the video, leaving viewers to infer that the “baby” exists on its own, and that the mother’s conditions are irrelevant. 

Several states, among them West Virginia, Tennessee and North Dakota, approved legislation allowing–but not requiring–public schools to show gestation videos. 

It is a misconception that the Florida Legislature approved a bill allowing for the showing of the “Baby Olivia” video or videos like it. The Legislature twice attempted to pass such a bill and twice failed. 

Last year Florida Rep. Dana Trabulsi introduced a bill that would, according to a legislative bill analysis, have required “that instruction on human embryologic development be included in health education for students in grades 6 through 12 ,” and that the instruction “include a high-definition, medically accurate ultrasound video showing the development of the heart and other organs and movement of the limbs and head.”  (See the bill’s original wording here.)

The requirement was dropped from the final version of what was a broad education bill with numerous provisions that had nothing to do with embryology. (See the final bill analysis here.) 

Trabulsi tried again this year and again failed to include the measure in a bill. 

Notably, Trabulsi had promised that she would work against approval of the Baby Olivia video as appropriate, given its medically suspect information. 

The state Department of Education has not approved the video as part of its curriculum, Ruddy said, but school boards are not barred from approving certain materials for the curriculum. There is a process, however. 

“At the time of our board meeting last night, I had not seen the video,” Ramirez, the School Board member, said this morning. “After the board meeting, I watched the video with my husband; it was a very basic and short overview of the human gestation process, as was represented by many of the speakers during public comment. As scientific findings are continuously being tested and revised, as a board we should review what is currently state approved, what is currently approved in our District, and what new materials may be available. Offering a more modern or current presentation of information is what we should strive for so our students are equipped with the best available information and educational tools. As a mom of four with a biomedical science and public health degree, I’d like to ensure any content shared with students is medically accurate and age appropriate. As for the request itself, as I always do, I will do my research and we will workshop as we do with any other item.”

Ramirez would not speculate on the timing of the request, though whether or not it was intended as an issue–or a wedge issue–at the height of the campaign may be a moot point: the board next meets for a workshop on Aug. 25, a week after the election, though nothing stops Furry from using last night’s move on the campaign trail. Furry is in a two-way race against Rob Wood. Chong is in a three-way race against Trevor Tucker and Ron Long. Cathy Moon and Jill Woolbright are contesting the District 1 open seat.