The idea seemed pretty straightforward. The fourth-grade class, made up of 9-and-10-year-olds from the Southeast corner of the state, worked on a proposal to make the Red Tail Hawk the official State Raptor of New Hampshire. The kids and their teacher brought their proposal to the state capitol, and it was approved by the Environment and Agriculture Committee.
But as the report from NH1.com’s Shari Small makes clear, on the floor of the state House, the children ran into unexpectedly fierce Republican opposition. The kids heard one GOP lawmaker argue, for example, in reference to the Red Tail Hawk, “It grasps them with its talons then uses its razor sharp beak to basically tear it apart limb by limb, and I guess the shame about making this a state bird is it would serve as a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood.”
Republicans are so obsessed with demonizing Planned Parenthood that they couldn’t NOT bring it up during a vote on a completely urelated bill made up by fourth graders... in front of said fourth graders.