Initially, valedictorian
Paxton Smith had planned to
talk about TV and the media in her
high school graduation speech.
As valedictorian, she gets to give
a speech, but she decided to move
away from that topic and pivot to
something that actually has some
pretty significant consequences for
women living in the state of Texas.
And that's the restrictive abortion
law that was just passed.
So, let's hear from Paxton Smith,
and what she had to say about it.
>> Recently, the Heartbeat Bill was
passed in Texas.
Starting in September,
there will be a ban on abortions
after six weeks of pregnancy,
regardless of whether the pregnancy
was a result of rape or incest.
Six weeks, that's all women get.
And so, before they realize,
most of them don't realize that
they're pregnant by six weeks.
So, before they have a chance to
decide if they're are emotionally,
physically, and financially stable
enough to carry out a full term
pregnancy, before they have the
chance to decide if they can take
on the responsibility of bringing
another human being into the world.
That decision is made for
them by a stranger.
A decision that will affect
the rest of their lives is made by
a stranger.
I have dreams and
hopes and ambitions,
every girl graduating today does.
And we have spent our entire lives
working towards our future.
And without our input, and
without our consent, our control
over that future has been stripped
away from us.
I am terrified that if my
contraceptives fail,
I am terrified that if I am raped,
then my hopes, and aspirations, and
dreams, and efforts for
my future will no longer matter.
I hope that you can feel how
gut-wrenching that is.
I hope you can feel how
dehumanizing it is to have
the autonomy over your own
body taken away from you.
>> Man, that gave me goosebumps.
That was incredible.
You're someone who supports people
who fight for what they believe.
And this woman, clearly, did that
by literally switching the script
to give a speech on something
important to her, I love it.
>> Yeah, the abortion issue
is kind of hard for me to talk
about because I find it, it's not
intellectually stimulating.
The other side doesn't have
a point.
They don't have an argument.
They're just being shameful,
rude, crude,
they're just being disgusting.
There's no other way to frame it.
And for this young woman to put it
in plain terms like you're
dehumanizing me, sir.
You're dehumanizing me, and
it's just as a man,
the idea that a bunch of dudes
would sit up there and be like,
nah, I don't think she should have
an abortion of strangers, much less
somebody you're actually close to.
Much less your own significant
other or daughter or whatever,
the idea that you should be able to
weigh in on how a woman decides to
carry on the business of her body,
and her life,
is just absurd for me.
I don't really have anything
eloquent to say.
This is so obvious and plain to me.
The evilness of all it is,
it's hard for me to speak on it,
to be real.
>> I think everything that
you just said is so on point.
And what's very clear to me is
that, not only does the right wing
fail to bring a decent argument to
the table, the one argument they do
bring to the table, this nonsense
about, yeah, about God and
the importance of protecting life.
Did they believe in the importance
of protecting life in the state of
Texas when the pandemic was at its
worst phase and the governor and
lieutenant governor both were
pushing to prematurely open
businesses, so their stock
portfolios would be okay?
Putting workers lives at risk with
this virus, the coronavirus.
They don't care about lives.
It's about controlling people.
It's about telling women what they
can and can't do with their bodies.
It's about going back to this
ridiculous 1960s,
1950s pipe dream that they have,
when things were so great.
When specific people, white men,
let's keep it real,
got to control everything.
They don't like the fact that women
get to control their bodies,
their economic fate, and
all of that, they hate it.
They can't stand it.
And the school is upset,
Lake Highlands High School,
they're like, we're going to make
sure that this never happens again.
Yeah, go ahead and try it.
But people are going to rise up,
and they're going to fight for
what they believe.