The valedictorian at a Texas high school has gone viral after she went off-script and delivered a speech condemning the state’s “heartbeat” abortion bill.
“I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights,” Paxton Smith, the valedictorian at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, said in her address to her class and their families. “A war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot stay silent.”
Smith had submitted a speech about the effect of media on young people but changed the address after her “mind kept wandering to the ‘heartbeat bill’ and what it meant.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill last month, which bans abortions after six weeks of gestation.
TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT SIGNS BILL BANNING ABORTIONS AFTER SIX WEEKS
“Our creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion,” Abbott said at the time. “In Texas, we work to save those lives. That’s exactly what the Texas Legislature did this session.”
The bill also allows private citizens to sue abortion providers. The law, which takes effect in September, does not make exceptions for cases of rape and incest.
Smith said she was terrified of not having access to abortions if she is sexually assaulted or her contraceptives fail, saying her “hopes and dreams will no longer be relevant.”
“We have spent our whole lives working towards our futures, and without our consent or input, our control over our futures has been stripped away from us. I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail me, that if I’m raped, then my hopes and efforts and dreams for myself will no longer be relevant. I hope you can feel how gut-wrenching it is, how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken from you.”
Smith’s speech caught the attention of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who praised her “guts” for speaking out about the issue.
This took guts. Thank you for not staying silent, Paxton. https://t.co/DlwEgmMRGN
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 2, 2021
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Two days after her speech, Smith reflected on the attention, telling D Magazine that it is out of her character to speak on controversial issues.
“It feels great. It also feels a little weird. Whenever I have opinions that can be considered political or controversial, I keep them to myself because I don’t like to gain attention for that kind of stuff. But I’m glad that I could do something, and I’m glad that it’s getting attention,” Smith said of her speech going viral. “It just feels weird for me, personally, that I’m linked to the attention that the speech got.”
