Washington (CNSNews.com) - Pro-life teachers, students, and activists gathered at the Washington Convention Center Wednesday to picket the apparent pro-abortion stance of the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest teacher's union.

Delegates to the NEA's Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly are meeting this week to debate education issues and set new policies, which some hope will better reflect the diversity of views of its members.

Holding up signs that read "Pro-Life NEA Member" and "NEA: Be Abortion Neutral," the group, which was hosted by the conservative Family Research Council, hopes to remove pro-abortion rights language from current NEA policies, including the statement, "The National Education Association supports family planning, including the right to reproductive freedom."

That "right to reproductive freedom" is exactly what Bob Pawson, national coordinator for the group Pro-Life Educators and Students, is hoping to replace with abortion-neutral language.

"The NEA leadership must become truly and unquestionably neutral on abortion; totally disengaged from the issue," Pawson said. "We did not join the NEA to be misrepresented on social, moral, and political issues such as abortion, homosexuality, gun control, and candidate endorsements."

Nancy Tanner, a retired teacher and NEA member, also addressed the issue, saying that the teachers union should stick to supporting teachers and children-not promoting controversial social policies and endorsing political candidates.

"These 3.2 million teachers do not join the NEA to support political candidates and agendas that do not represent them, their morals, values or well being," Tanner said. "Abortion is not a good thing for women, it is not a good thing for teachers, and it is certainly not a good thing for the children whose lives it takes."

In an interview, Tanner told Cybercast News Service she was hopeful that most NEA members support neutrality on issues that have no bearing on education.

"Those are personal decisions that people make," she said. "It's not something that 3.2 million members are going to jump behind and endorse. It's just not there. The support is not there within the membership."

Sissy Jochmann, an NEA member who teaches second grade in Pittsburgh, Pa., told Cybercast News Service that she thinks the NEA should have a "position of no position."

"They are claiming to be neutral - they tell us over and over again that they have a neutral position - but their money trail and their ties to organizations that are clearly pro-choice paint a different picture," Jochmann said. "We're trying to hold them to that claim by continuing to push for the no position."

Jochmann, who has been a delegate to the NEA convention for eight years, said she thinks the union can be changed from activism within the organization.

"That's why I'm still involved," she said.

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