A group of animal-loving fourth graders in New Hampshire worked in class and in their spare time to draft a bill that would name the Red-Tailed Hawk the "state raptor" of New Hampshire. But their civics education turned into a lesson on modern American politics when a legislator turned their field trip into a debate about abortion, according to the Associated Press.
"It grasps them with its talons and then uses its razor-sharp beak to rip its victims to shreds, to basically tear it apart limb by limb," Rep. Warren Groen, a Republican from Rochester, said about the hawk. "And I guess the shame about making this a state bird is it would serve as a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood."
The measure was defeated, and Groen defended himself against criticism that his comments were inappropriate.
"The gallery is open to the public and there are children in the gallery every day," Groen said. "I don't know if we should limit free speech or limit the attendance in the gallery. It seems either one would be bad for transparency in government."
According to the principal of the fourth graders' school, the abortion reference went over the kids' heads.
"None of the kids got those references," he said. "Fortunately they didn't, because it's such a disgusting reference. But certainly that led to questions about what did that mean."
Groen, meanwhile, has continued to press his point.
"The selective outrage about this I find quite curious," he told The Huffington Post. "Every week in Manchester, the fourth-grade class from 2025 is killed out. Babies that would be 10 years old and in fourth grade 10 years from now are aborted in Manchester, and there's no outrage."
The fourth graders' teacher, who also spoke with The Huffington Post, says students lost out a potential learning moment.
The incident, he said, was "a missed opportunity for an adult to be a great role model."
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Jill Filipovic is a contributing writer for cosmopolitan.com. She is the author of OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind and The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness. A weekly CNN columnist and a contributing writer for the New York Times, she is also a lawyer.
