{"id":2012,"date":"2011-06-22T08:56:37","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T12:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2011-06-23T12:51:05","modified_gmt":"2011-06-23T16:51:05","slug":"school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html","title":{"rendered":"School lets 10-year-old speak out against abortion &#8212; to an empty auditorium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ranchero Elementary School allowed 10-year-old\u00a0Calise Jontz\u00a0to make her heart-felt speech against abortion.<\/p>\n<p>To an auditorium cleared of students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid you know that from the moment of conception, every distinctive characteristic of this new human being is programmed into this single initial cell?\u201d asked Calise Jontz, a fifth grader during the May 6 Annual Zone Public Speaking Competition\u00a0for grade schoolers in\u00a0Falklands, British Columbia.<\/p>\n<p>Here is Calise, rehearsing her speech at home:<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Abortion Speech by Calise Jontz  a gr.5 Falkland Elementary Student.3gp\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sTL28evv7j4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>&#8220;Young, bright-eyed and articulate, 10-year-old Calise lives with her parents and seven siblings on a cattle ranch in rural British Columbia,&#8221; writes Rebecca Millette for LifeSiteNews. &#8220;An avid Justin Bieber fan, she also loves horses, reading, singing and dancing. Most recently, she has become a pro-life advocate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In her speech, she declares: \u201cToday I will be speaking to you about abortion. Is this a controversial issue? Yes, but like all controversial issues, it requires urgent attention and education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She first made her speech as part of a school contest. When Calise first delivered it, teachers and staff \u201cdidn\u2019t seem to be bothered by this topic,\u201d says Calise\u2019s mom, Yolanda Jontz, \u201calthough the principal did request to hear her speech initially, I guess to make sure it was appropriate for elementary school aged children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All that changed when Calise went to the regional speech competition at a nearby host school, where Jontz says her daughter encountered what she called \u201cintimidated censorship,\u201d reports Millette.<\/p>\n<p>Calise\u00a0deliberately omitted graphic details about abortion and\u00a0did not describe partial birth abortions. Instead, she stuck to the facts in a manner appropriate for a young audience of her peers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nevertheless, upon arriving at the host school for the speech competition,&#8221; reports Millette,\u00a0&#8220;Yolanda and her daughter found the gymnasium nearly empty, where Yolanda says usually the entire school, as well as competitors and parents, would attend. A handful of competitors, parents, and the judges were present for Calise\u2019s speech, but only after her speech, as well as few others, did both younger and older students come.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The child&#8217;s mother\u00a0says that Calise\u2019s speech was singled out and boycotted.<\/p>\n<p>Principal Denise Brown says no letter about the speech was sent out warning anybody about the speech. However, she declined to explain why the gym was almost empty &#8212; and directed allquestions to Wendy Woodhurst, School District Director of Instruction.<\/p>\n<p>Woodhurst refused to comment.<\/p>\n<p>Calise&#8217;s mother says at least one parent that she knows of received a warning letter about the abortion speech.<\/p>\n<p>No mention was made of other controversial topics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe weren\u2019t informed that one speech was going to be about dolphin slaughter, or that another was about how great Lady Gaga is. This seemed unfair,\u201d says Calise&#8217;s mother.<\/p>\n<p>After her speech, an unidentified man, with tears in his eyes, commended Calise for her speech and her bravery.<\/p>\n<p>Another student\u2019s father, formerly a trustee with the school board, also praised Calise and expressed concern about the negative attention surrounding her speech. He said he might not agree with everything Calise presented, but\u00a0he would never have censored her topic.<\/p>\n<p>The speech, he added, had sparked good discussion with his own daughters.<\/p>\n<p>In the speech Calise asked: \u201cIs the fetus human? And does it deserve protection?\u201d concluding, \u201cThe answer to both is yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what is abortion, you ask?\u201d concluded the 10-year-old. \u201cAbortion isn\u2019t just ending a pregnancy or eliminating a piece of tissue. No, abortion is killing an unborn child and hurting a mother.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ranchero Elementary School allowed 10-year-old\u00a0Calise Jontz\u00a0to make her heart-felt speech against abortion. To an auditorium cleared of students. \u201cDid you know that from the moment of conception, every distinctive characteristic of this new human being is programmed into this single initial cell?\u201d asked Calise Jontz, a fifth grader during the May 6 Annual Zone Public&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,250,84,193,107],"tags":[379,54,425,262],"class_list":["post-2012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-canada-2","category-children","category-free-speech","category-political-correctness","tag-abortion","tag-canada","tag-free-speech","tag-right-to-life"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>School lets 10-year-old speak out against abortion - to an empty auditorium - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"School lets 10-year-old speak out against abortion - to an empty auditorium - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ranchero Elementary School allowed 10-year-old\u00a0Calise Jontz\u00a0to make her heart-felt speech against abortion. To an auditorium cleared of students. \u201cDid you know that from the moment of conception, every distinctive characteristic of this new human being is programmed into this single initial cell?\u201d asked Calise Jontz, a fifth grader during the May 6 Annual Zone Public&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-22T12:56:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-06-23T16:51:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"School lets 10-year-old speak out against abortion - to an empty auditorium - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"School lets 10-year-old speak out against abortion - to an empty auditorium - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","og_description":"Ranchero Elementary School allowed 10-year-old\u00a0Calise Jontz\u00a0to make her heart-felt speech against abortion. To an auditorium cleared of students. \u201cDid you know that from the moment of conception, every distinctive characteristic of this new human being is programmed into this single initial cell?\u201d asked Calise Jontz, a fifth grader during the May 6 Annual Zone Public&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html","og_site_name":"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","article_published_time":"2011-06-22T12:56:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-06-23T16:51:05+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html","name":"School lets 10-year-old speak out against abortion - to an empty auditorium - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-22T12:56:37+00:00","dateModified":"2011-06-23T16:51:05+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/school-lets-10-year-old-speak-out-against-abortion-to-an-empty-auditorium.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"School lets 10-year-old speak out against abortion &#8212; to an empty auditorium"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/","name":"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Rob Kerby","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2014,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}