Nebraska Education Department Wants to Push Sex and Abortion on Kids

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Oct 18, 2021   |   5:38PM   |   Lincoln, Nebraska

Nebraska parents are speaking out against a proposed sex education curriculum that would promote risky sexual behavior and abortions in their public schools.

The backlash from parents and pro-life Gov. Pete Ricketts recently prompted the Nebraska Department of Education to take out “specific mentions of transgenderism, hormone therapy, reproductive care, and oral and anal sex,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.

But parents still say the proposed curriculum is not appropriate for children. And a new investigation by the Washington Free Beacon found that Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups were involved in its development.

The Nebraska Department of Education developed the proposed curriculum earlier this year with the help of an advisory committee. One member was a Friends of Planned Parenthood board member and former Planned Parenthood employee, according to the Beacon.

In March, the department published its first draft. The curriculum called for first graders to be taught about gender identity, seventh graders about oral and anal sex and eighth graders to learn about abortion.

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The draft closely followed the National Sexuality Education Standards, a report written by pro-abortion groups with input from Planned Parenthood. Among other things, it instructs teachers to tell children that an abortion is just a “medicinal or surgical procedure that ends a pregnancy” and show them how to find abortion facilities in their area.

Radical pro-abortion groups are lobbying to have these sex education “standards” taught across the country, and some states already are.

In Nebraska, the investigation resulting from parents’ outrage provides some insight into just how closely these groups work behind the scenes to get their agenda into public schools – even in conservative, pro-life states.

Here’s more from the report:

In a May fact sheet, titled “Points of Clarification,” NDE insisted the curriculum “was not written by activists” and that “Planned Parenthood is not funding or helping to write the Nebraska Health Education Standards.” Internal communications, obtained by the Free Beacon from a concerned parent, paint a very different picture. Emails and text messages from elected board of education representatives, NDE employees, and advisory board members show that activists were not only closely involved but disparaged parents and froze out teachers who were supposed to write the curriculum.

The department also rejected multiple requests to allow experts with Catholic views to participate in 28-member advisory committee, according to the report.

Jeremy Ekeler, of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, said he proposed three different individuals with expert experience on the matter to the department. After delays, he said the department told him that the advisory committee was full.

“To know that a tax-funded state entity boxed out the beliefs of such a huge portion of our population is sadly ironic,” Ekeler told the Beacon. “The [department] has preached inclusion and diversity through this whole thing and then they excluded anybody who doesn’t fit with their agenda.”

However, the department did cave into pressure to add a Planned Parenthood advocate to the committee, according to the investigation.

Here’s more:

Internal emails show that Deborah Neary, a state board of education member, pressured the [department] to include Lisa Schulze, a Friends of Planned Parenthood board member and former Planned Parenthood employee, in the curriculum draft process. “I am very disappointed that none of the folks that I recommended to participate in the Nebraska Department of Education Standard Writing Team were selected,” Neary said in an email. Schulze and two other activists—the executive director of OutNebraska and a local professor dedicated to the “intersection of sexuality and social justice”—requested by Neary were eventually added to the advisory team, which provided feedback on the standards to the writing team.

Planned Parenthood boasts of being the largest provider of sex education in the United States. The billion-dollar abortion chain also aborts more unborn babies than any other group in the U.S., including about 354,000 last year.

The National Sex Education Standards report thanks Planned Parenthood for providing materials and writings as well as Planned Parenthood national director of education Sonya Norsworthy for her “valuable contributions to and feedback on drafts.”

The standards promote sex and undermine parental guidance. They tell young children: “No one else is qualified to label or judge another person’s sexual identity, including their sexual orientation or gender identity, and it is important that the language and terms young people use to identify themselves is respected by the adults in their lives.”

In eighth grade, students are told that getting an STD is “nothing to be embarrassed about,” and, in sixth grade, students are taught that touching someone’s breasts or genitals “inside clothes” still “may be” considered abstinence, according to the curriculum.

The Illinois legislature recently voted to require the sex education standards be taught in every public school in the state, and the Austin Independent School District in Texas is using them, too.