A Colorado middle school prevented a student from reading a pro-life poem she wrote celebrating life in the womb. The school called her poem “offensive,” “unsafe,” and “too political,” while allowing poems supporting LGBTQ rights and a poem that reportedly mocked Jesus.
The 13-year-old student attends Drake Middle School, a school within Jefferson County (Jeffco) Public Schools. According to the student and her mother, when it was time for the student to present her poem to her class, her teacher stopped her, explaining that she was not permitted to present the poem and that she had to leave the classroom while the other students presented.
The girl and her mother shared her story in a video posted on the conservative social media account Libs of TikTok.
“My teacher assigned an assignment in class to write a slam poem about conflict in the world that we are passionate about,” she said.
Passionate about unborn babies, she chose to write about the value of life in the womb.
“I chose life,” she said. “I chose this topic because it’s important to me and my family. In my poem, I met all of the criteria. I got reputable resources and I included everything that I needed in my poem, but when I asked my teacher if I could present it, she said no. This is why my mom had to step in.”
The student explained that when she further questioned her teacher, she “finally said that I could be in the class to listen.”
The student’s mother explained why she spoke to the school about the incident.
“They said that because of the offensive material in the poem, that they were not going to allow her to present,” the mother said, “and I pushed back on them because not only were they presenting a lot of political material themselves, but they were presenting it as truth. They brought up issues like racial issues, they had LGBTQ rights, immigration.”
The mother added that the school responded by saying the poem was “too political” and they were “not going to allow it.’”
Barred from sharing her poem at school, the student recited her poem in a separate Libs of TikTok video.
“They never get to see the light of day before they are cast away,” she read from her poem. “They did nothing wrong except exist and were dismissed. People say women need healthcare but never think how unfair—they kill babies for simply being there.”
She concluded her poem with the statement, “A life is a life, no matter how small.”
Her mother explained that abortion has personal meaning to their family because her own mother—the student’s grandmother—chose to not abort her, when she became pregnant at 14.
“I wouldn’t be here today if she lived in the climate that we live in now,” the student’s mother said, “because mostly people would say that she should have aborted me.”
She added, “This shows why this topic is so very important to us, because there is hope in hard situations. There is purpose in pain. Good things come out of situations that seem bleak, and my family is proof of that.”
