Abortion opponents want Kansas students to be required to watch fetal development videos

Videos depicting human fetal development could become required viewing in Kansas public schools if abortion opponents get their way.

It’s a polarizing proposal among parents and school board members in Johnson and Wyandotte Counties, where support for abortion rights is strong.

The bill calls for pairing at least three minutes of lifelike animation or high-definition ultrasound footage with information about how quickly fetuses’ vital organs develop. It would apply to any class that addresses human growth, development or sexuality — regardless of grade level.

Amber Pagan, a Shawnee Mission pre-K teacher who also has an eighth grader in the district, said any curriculum additions should be grade-appropriate and politically neutral.

“It’s hard for me too because the people who are anti-abortion are anti-sex education,” Pagan said, adding that this perspective often pushes an abstinence-only curriculum. “I do feel like we need to speak to all students, no matter where they are coming from.”

While some students may choose abstinence, others may not, and it’s important to equip them with the tools they need for the choices they’ll make, rather than scaring them away from discussions around the subject, she said.

“Scare tactics have bad effects.”

The videos would become mandatory for students in sex education and biology classes starting next school year if Republicans can get their bill across the finish line.

Rep. Wanda Brownlee Paige, a Kansas City Democrat who also serves on the KCK public school board, said the new standard would breach local control and promote a political message.

“They don’t believe in (abortion) and they’re doing everything they can to get their point across,” Paige said.

More than two in every three Johnson and Wyandotte County residents who voted in the 2022 abortion referendum rejected the proposal to empower lawmakers to further restrict abortion access or ban it outright.

For her part, Olathe Public Schools parent Danielle Good welcomes lawmakers’ push to mandate fetal development curriculum. She told The Star that students should be encouraged to reflect on the weight of a pregnancy.

“I’m actually all for this. Watching a video like this is what made me turn pro-life,” Good said in a text message. “I think everyone should have a visual of what actually happens during that procedure before making a life-altering decision.”

Who should set standards?

David Westbrook, a Shawnee Mission school board member, said the underlying assumption behind the bill is that local school districts can’t be trusted to provide students with sufficient instruction.

“The implication of the policy is that we don’t teach biology or that kids don’t get access to a good course in biology,” Westbrook said. “They understand growth and development of living creatures, including human beings. But what’s being promoted here is a political point of view.

“The classroom should not become a place for the presentation of political propaganda to serve a point of view on a political issue any more than we should find it to be a place to sell a product or a service from a business.”

Kansas joins a growing list of conservative states that have taken up fetal development bills since the release of “Baby Olivia, ”a three-minute instructional video produced by Live Action, a national advocacy group that says on its website it exists “to shift public opinion on the killing of preborn children.”

Physicians and educators say Live Action’s video presents misleading information about fetuses’ developmental milestones, claiming that brain, heart and virtual organ formation occur roughly two weeks before they actually do.

“What the opponents fear most about this bill is that the scientific facts might actually lead students to their own conclusions,” said Sen. Joe Claeys, a Maize Republican, during floor debate last week. “When they say they lack context, I feel like what they really mean is that it lacks the insertion of their ideology.”

Kansans for Life, the state’s leading anti-abortion political action group, has thrown its weight behind the fetal development proposal.

“In an age where young people are constantly bombarded with misinformation by TikTok ‘influencers’ and others on various social media platforms, we believe it is important to promote the scientific truths about human pregnancy,” said Jeanne Gawdun, KFL’s director of government relations.

‘Unintended consequences’

Senate Republicans held a hearing on the fetal development curriculum requirement bill earlier this month. Then, they inserted the language into a noncontroversial bill designed to adjust pay for state school board members that passed the House 115-7.

After adding back the school board component in conference committee meetings this week, the Senate adopted the bill 31-9 late Wednesday evening. If the House approves the combined measure, it would be sent to Gov. Laura Kelly, who could sign it, veto it or allow it to become law without her signature.

State board members have historically shut down lawmakers’ attempts to interject their own curriculum standards into Kansas public schools. But lawmakers appear to believe the board’s new social conservative majority could be more receptive to the fetal development suggestion.

“I think it’s fine for it to be part of the curriculum,” said Connie O’Brien, a former Republican state lawmaker who was elected last year to represent areas in northern Johnson County, southwest Wyandotte County and parts of eastern Kansas.

“This will just be another point for them to consider before they engage in (sex) because this is what happens when you engage in that type of behavior,” said O’Brien, a mother of 11 children who previously served as director of religious education at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Tonganoxie.

“You’re creating a human being, and they need to be aware of it, that it’s serious. It’s not fun. It’s not to be taken lightly,” she said.

O’Brien said she would support establishing a statewide standard for fetal development curriculum but that it should be up to local school boards to decide whether they use it.

Danny Zeck, a Republican state school board member whose district includes much of northeast Kansas and part of Wyandotte County, described himself as a “KFL person all the way” but said he opposes legislative overreach.

“There should be no abortion, but there could be unintended consequences putting something like that (video) in there. I have no problem with it being in the schools, but let’s let the local boards make the decision,” Zeck said.

Anh-Nguyet Nguyen, a member of the De Soto school board with a doctorate in physiology from the University of Kansas, said her experience teaching upper-level embryology courses leads her to believe no fetal development curriculum would be a good fit for middle and high school students.

“As an undergraduate student in cell biology, I took a course in developmental biology in my sophomore year,” Nguyen said. “Asking these topics to be covered at any level of K-12 with any degree of sufficiency, in my opinion, is unrealistic and unreasonable.”

“I would love to invite every one of these senators to spend one full day in a public school classroom and witness the passion our teachers have for their craft and the children... before they make these demands on any aspect of public education.”

Pagan, the Shawnee Mission parent and teacher, said public schools have a responsibility to provide a well-rounded sex ed curriculum.

“We need to be talking about the things that affect them, like STDS, healthy relationships, focusing on what is a healthy relationship rather than anti-abortions and stopping kids from having abortions.”