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Earlier this week we learned that a few (literally 4) healthcare professionals joined with local hate group Nebraska Family Alliance as well as a newly formed group called “Protect Women and Children Committee” (which is also just Nebraska Family Alliance under a different name) to introduce a ballot initiative to ban abortion after 12 weeks, supposedly with exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergencies (the first two unprovable in the eyes of the law within 12 weeks, and the last one up to the discretion of doctors terrified of being jailed for providing lifesaving healthcare). Let’s take a look at the people behind this initiative.
First we have Mark Patefield, a 2016 Legislative who candidate who lost his bid despite being bankrolled by Pete Ricketts. (Eight of the fourteen candidates backed by Ricketts won their seats that year, which is why we are in this dipshit fascist hell now). Patefield owns The Apothecary in Laurel, as well as the U Save Pharmacy in Wayne, where we are told they refuse to sell Plan B and are “weird” about birth control prescriptions. Patefield is also a member of the State Board of Health, having been appointed by Ricketts in December of 2020.
Another of the four members of this “small group of healthcare professionals” is Jan Kuehn, mother to Pete Rickett’s bestie, veterinarian John Kuehn, who was also appointed to the State Board of Health by Ricketts in 2020. As you will recall, John Kuehn ran Ricketts’s anti-marijuana group “Smart Approaches to Marijuana Nebraska” alongside Ricketts’s Nazi Bennett Bressman and was appointed to the State Board of Health anyway despite the opposition of many Nebraskans. At this point the Nebraska Board of Health is nothing more than an extremist group doing the bidding of Ricketts and his installed puppet Jim Pillen.
Of course local hate group Nebraska Family Alliance is the main driving force behind this initiative. Despite being an obviously religious organization, they have crafted and lobbied for many hateful policies in Nebraska, including authoring an amendment to the Nebraska constitution that prohibits same-sex marriage, preventing LGBT couples from raising children (because of NFA lobbying, same-sex couples in Nebraska could not adopt until 2017), consistently fighting antidiscrimination laws at the state level, opposing extending Nebraska’s domestic assault law to unmarried couples, making heterosexual divorce more difficult, opposing sex education and birth control, preventing children from ever hearing about the concept of gay or gender non-conforming people, arguing for legal conversion therapy, and keeping it legal to beat children to keep them in line. They also opposed daycare centers in Lincoln Public Schools. You can read more about this hate group here and here.
Also backing this abortion ban initiative is “Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America”, a national group backed by anti-abortion billionaires who are attacking abortion rights in 13 states including Nebraska. As with all the other hateful policies being discussed and passed in Nebraska the last few years, this abortion ban has nothing to do with what Nebraskans actually want or care about. Our Senators are simply doing the bidding of national hate groups backed by billionaires. They do not give a single shit about us.
But I digress.
Let’s be honest. The extremists behind this petition know Nebraskans are not going to ban abortion. They are likely just trying to confuse the issue and take signatures away from the petition to enshrine abortion rights into the Nebraska constitution. Pay very close attention to any petition you sign regarding abortion. We know these extremists are not above misleading voters in order to harm women. Click here to find out where you can sign the petition to protect abortion rights in Nebraska.
