Paxton Smith vs. the Texas Heartbeat Law

American Thinker.com ^ | June 10, 2021 | Lauren Enriquez

[Kaslin]

Earlier this month, Texas teen Paxton Smith surprised the audience at her high school graduation and used her valedictory speech to criticize the state of Texas for protecting preborn children from abortion violence through the passage of the Texas Heartbeat Law. While no state has yet enacted protections for babies from the moment of conception, the Texas law is among the earliest protections nationwide, banning abortion violence on prenatal children whose heartbeats can be detected, three to four weeks after fertilization.

Smith has a right to speak her mind about the law. Unlike members of the woke cancel culture, pro-life Americans by and large hold that free speech and conversation about abortion was inappropriately shut down by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade’s sweeping cram-down of abortion on every state. By the same token, pro-life Americans have a right to voice the counter position to Paxton’s. I was proud of my colleagues Sarah Zarr and Melanie Salazar for doing just that at a rally this week in Austin, where they were interviewed by ABC’s Nightline.

Smith’s valedictory speech was not unique in that it echoed the typical abortion lobby talking points justifying aborting babies with heartbeats -- that many women don’t know they’re pregnant before their baby’s heart starts beating (which is true); that the legislation does not afford exceptions for killing children conceived in rape or incest (also true); and that abortion restrictions in general strip women of “bodily autonomy” (not true).

As a fellow Texas woman and a mother of four young children born and raised in this great state, I’m compelled to provide a counterpoint to one of Paxton’s claims in particular: her assertion that without the right to kill her children, Paxton’s “hopes and dreams” for herself “will no longer be relevant.”