Posted on 06/02/2021 6:50:49 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
You don't have to wait to change the world.
It appears graduating high school senior Paxton Smith knows that well: The class valedictorian didn't waste time or mince words when giving her commencement speech in Texas on Sunday. Instead of delivering a pre-approved speech on teen media use, D Magazine reported, she used her platform to decry a bill Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed that bans abortion in the state at six weeks, a time when most people don't know they're pregnant.
While her voice shakes at first in the video above, Smith gains confidence as she goes on. (The speech starts at the 4:30 mark.)
"Starting in September, there will be a ban on abortions that take place after six weeks of pregnancy, regardless of whether the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. Six weeks. That's all women get," Smith said.
Then Smith made the ramifications of the law personal:
"I have dreams, and hopes, and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does," she said. "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."
At that point, the crowd broke out in cheers. Smith continued:
"I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail, I'm terrified that if I’m raped, then my hopes and efforts and dreams and efforts for my future will no longer matter. I hope 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 from away you."
She ended with a call to action:
"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. 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."
Her address has reverberated far beyond the Dallas community where, as D Magazine reported, administrators threatened that her diploma could be withheld. On Twitter, it's been viewed more than 600,000 times and more than 210,000 times on TikTok, Vice reported.
“What the student did was unexpected and not supported by LHHS or RISD," RISD School Board President Karen Clardy told Advocate Magazine of Lake Highlands, a suburb northeast of Dallas where Smith went to school. "We are going to review student speech protocols in advance of next year’s graduations to prevent something like this from happening again.”
Here ‘hopes and dreams’ are more important than a babies life?
She’s a good pearl-clutcher for 18.
“…our control over that future has been stripped away from us.” — if only there were some other way to avoid getting pregnant.
“I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail…” — perhaps there’s another way to avoid getting pregnant.
Girl, keep your legs closed.
The forced labor camps of her future will be segregated by sexes (all 9 of them) so you need not worry about getting preggy, Comrade.
Ugh. My old high school.
Contraception only costs a penny. Hold that penny between your knees.
What is with all these child crusaders? They must have been raised to think they are extra special. Politics has invaded everything now. We never get a moment’s peace from this crap. I knew when I saw the story that the girl would be pro-death. If she had given a pro-life speech, the media would never have mentioned it.
Turned in on herself. We all need not to be like her.
Paxton Smith, aka Greta....
If she had given a pro-life speech she’d be in jail for disturbing the peace.
“... a time when most people don’t know they’re pregnant.”
Every person knows when they could be parenting a child.
Boo-hoo
She is a typical snowflake young adult-it is all about her, and she refuses to take any responsibility-a real adult takes responsibility for their sexuality and reproduction-it isn’t like there are not 100’s of birth control methods available to every adult at a cheap price in every drug or grocery store...
I hope her parents are shunned and regarded with disgust for allowing their spoiled adult brat to ruin graduation for others-if she were my brat, she’d be out on the street with no vehicle, insurance or money that she doesn’t make at her own job by now...
They would have pulled the plug.
Someone knew she was going to do it.
Paxton should shut up, get her vaxx [risking her child-bearing abilities] and wear her face diaper like a good little sheep.
Fine...let her murder her babies because she can’t stop being a whore.
And then she can stand before Almighty G-d and try to justify her immoral behavior.
And then....by her own choice...she can burn for eternity in a devil’s Hell.
A benefit there would be that she couldn't preach at us with her mouth full...
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