Cheers to Paxton Smith for Courageous High School Graduation Speech Denouncing Texas Anti-Abortion Law

June 7, 2021 | revcom.us

 

In her valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas last weekend, graduating senior Paxton Smith courageously and powerfully denounced a hateful Texas law outlawing abortion after 6-weeks of pregnancy (read her speech below). This law, set to go into effect on September 1, is a “de facto (in fact) ban on nearly all abortions” in the state, as the website Vox wrote. It contains no exceptions for rape or incest.

Paxton Smith said to a reporter that she felt a little “weird” about giving a speech like the one she gave because of the attention it brings to her personally. Then she added, “But I’m glad that I could do something, and I’m glad that it’s getting attention.” She had originally intended her speech to be about the TV and media, but then decided to switch without the school’s approval. As she said in concluding her speech, “I refuse to give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights. A war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot stay silent.”

A couple of days after Paxton Smith spoke, a federal court blocked a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood to overturn a city ordinance in Lubbock, Texas, that outlaws abortion within this city of over 250,000 and empowers what it calls the “mother, father, grandparents, siblings, and half-siblings” of the aborted embryo or fetus to sue anyone who helped a woman get access to an abortion. The ordinance has similar language and enforcement provisions to the state law—an ominous indication that the abortion facilities across the state may be forced to close very soon and that millions of women in the second most populous state in the country may “have the autonomy over your own body taken from you,” as Paxton Smith said.

Many in the graduation audience applauded her speech throughout, especially at its end. A lot more people need to find—and express—their voices the way Paxton Smith did, and a lot more people need to take bold action to stop the dangerous, systematic and dramatically escalating assaults upon the right to abortion.

Below is the rough transcript of her speech.

“As we leave high school we need to make our voices heard. I was going to get up here and talk to you about TV and content and media because those are things that are very important to me. However, in light of recent events, it feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state.

“Recently the heartbeat bill was passed in Texas. Starting in September, there will be a ban on abortions that take place after 6 weeks of pregnancy, regardless of whether the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. 6 weeks. Most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant by then. And so, before they have the time to decide if they 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 into the world, the decision has been made for them by a stranger. A decision that will affect the rest of their lives.

“I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does. 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.

“And I’m talking about this today, on a day as important as this, on a day honoring the students’ efforts in twelve years of schooling, on a day where we’re all brought together, on a day where you will be the most inclined to hear a voice like mine, a woman’s voice, to tell you that this is a problem. A problem that can’t wait. I refuse to give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights. A war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your daughters.

“We cannot stay silent.”