Valedictorian Ditches Approved Graduation Speech to Slam Texas Abortion Law: ‘There Is a War On My Body and a War on My Rights’

This year’s valedictorian at Lakeland Highlands High School in Dallas ditched a graduation speech that had been approved by school administrators, and instead took aim at an anti-abortion law enacted by Texas last month. The law bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected – sometimes as early as six weeks into pregnancy, when many women don’t even know they are pregnant – and allows private citizens to sue abortion providers.

Valedictorian Paxton Smith dropped her approved speech about the effect of social media on young people, and took the opportunity to shred the law as an egregious encroachment on women’s rights, in comments that got a lot of attention online Wednesday.

I have dreams and hopes and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does, and we have spent our entire lives working toward 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… And 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. Thank you.

Smith received vigorous applause during and after her speech.

The Texas senate has already passed a bill that would outlaw abortions altogether in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973.

You can watch above via WFAA.