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Valedictorian mentions religion her microphone is cut, advocating for abortion is OK
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:46 pm
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:46 pm
High School Valedictorian Uses Speech To Blast Texas' New Abortion Ban
Lydia O'Connor·Reporter, HuffPost
Wed, June 2, 2021, 5:26 PM
A Texas high schooler tasked with delivering the valedictorian address at her graduation ceremony ditched her school-approved speech and used her platform to take down her state’s new abortion ban last weekend.
“It feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state,” Paxton Smith, the 2021 valedictorian at Dallas’s Lake Highlands High School, said as she pulled a copy of her new speech from her graduation robe.
The issue affecting millions of Texas women is an extreme abortion ban Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed last month. It effectively bans abortion at six weeks into pregnancy, which is before many women even know they’re pregnant, and is slated to go into effect in September.
“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,” said Smith, who shared some of her decision-making process with Dallas’s D Magazine on Tuesday. After getting the OK from her parents to proceed with a vastly different speech than the one that was approved by her school administrators, she practiced her new address until she’d nearly memorized it.
The audience erupted in applause as Smith detailed what exactly is at stake.
“I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does,” she said. “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.”
Footage of Smith’s speech began reaching a wider audience in the days following her address as media outlets, Hillary Clinton and other public figures applauded her.
“This took guts,” Clinton tweeted.
Texas is one of several states to pass a six-week abortion ban in recent legislative sessions. They’re typically billed as “fetal heartbeat” laws that would ban abortion as soon as doctors can detect a heartbeat in the fetus, but doctors say that language is medically inaccurate and misleading.
The Texas law is unique in that it also allows anyone to enforce the ban through lawsuits, which pro-choice activists say adds another layer of intimidation to anyone seeking abortion care.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently announced it will take up the issue of bans on abortion before the fetus is viable outside the womb, likely later this year. The reproductive protections it established Roe v. Wade in 1973 could be completely thrown out by its decision.
Lydia O'Connor·Reporter, HuffPost
Wed, June 2, 2021, 5:26 PM
A Texas high schooler tasked with delivering the valedictorian address at her graduation ceremony ditched her school-approved speech and used her platform to take down her state’s new abortion ban last weekend.
“It feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state,” Paxton Smith, the 2021 valedictorian at Dallas’s Lake Highlands High School, said as she pulled a copy of her new speech from her graduation robe.
The issue affecting millions of Texas women is an extreme abortion ban Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed last month. It effectively bans abortion at six weeks into pregnancy, which is before many women even know they’re pregnant, and is slated to go into effect in September.
“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,” said Smith, who shared some of her decision-making process with Dallas’s D Magazine on Tuesday. After getting the OK from her parents to proceed with a vastly different speech than the one that was approved by her school administrators, she practiced her new address until she’d nearly memorized it.
The audience erupted in applause as Smith detailed what exactly is at stake.
“I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does,” she said. “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.”
Footage of Smith’s speech began reaching a wider audience in the days following her address as media outlets, Hillary Clinton and other public figures applauded her.
“This took guts,” Clinton tweeted.
Texas is one of several states to pass a six-week abortion ban in recent legislative sessions. They’re typically billed as “fetal heartbeat” laws that would ban abortion as soon as doctors can detect a heartbeat in the fetus, but doctors say that language is medically inaccurate and misleading.
The Texas law is unique in that it also allows anyone to enforce the ban through lawsuits, which pro-choice activists say adds another layer of intimidation to anyone seeking abortion care.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently announced it will take up the issue of bans on abortion before the fetus is viable outside the womb, likely later this year. The reproductive protections it established Roe v. Wade in 1973 could be completely thrown out by its decision.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:48 pm to tigersbb
quote:
It feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state,” Paxton Smith
She sounds like a whore.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:49 pm to tigersbb
fake problem
plan B is discreet and not difficult to obtain
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:52 pm to tigersbb
quote:
“This took guts,” Clinton tweeted.
She has her diploma, she's already been accepted to college, etc.
Social media, celebrities, the DNC are drooling all over this speech as we speak.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:52 pm to tigersbb
She sounds dumb. How bout not have sex and if you do prepare for what can happen from screwing around. Dumb arse bitch.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:54 pm to tigersbb
I went to two public HS graduations in Texas last month and both had Christian invocations. We still do a prayer before every A&M home game. Most high school games I attend here have a pregame prayer beforehand.
I guess Texas is just an outlier in this regard, but all of that seems both common and normal to me.
As for this speech, that’s a weird thing to being up in that context.
I guess Texas is just an outlier in this regard, but all of that seems both common and normal to me.
As for this speech, that’s a weird thing to being up in that context.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:56 pm to tigersbb
quote:
millions of other women in this state
Millions of women seeking to kill children should be disturbing and corrected.
quote:
“I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does,” she said. “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.
Then don't spread your legs for every dick that flirts with you. Why do these people never see they have a choice?
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:58 pm to Roger Klarvin
quote:
I went to two public HS graduations in Texas last month and both had Christian invocations. We still do a prayer before every A&M home game. Most high school games I attend here have a pregame prayer beforehand.
I know my statement is generalized but there have been documented cases where a student had his microphone cut off when he made a reference to God or even some concept considered conservatively political.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 6:59 pm to tigersbb
quote:
“I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions.
What about the dreams, hopes and ambitions of the kid inside you? If your mom had exercised the same “right” you advocate, you would not be in front of this microphone.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:01 pm to tigersbb
quote:
I know my statement is generalized but there have been documented cases where a student had his microphone cut off when he made a reference to God or even some concept considered conservatively political
That's what lured him into the thread....a good ole opportunity to bash religion
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:03 pm to tigersbb
I’m sure it happens, and I recognize it may be really weird in most places to see so much open acknowledgement of god/religion still in such settings. I’m just saying my experience is it’s still at least somewhat the norm in Texas.
Frankly I think it’s weird people even give it a second thought. I’m not religious at all it’s never bothered me in the least.
Frankly I think it’s weird people even give it a second thought. I’m not religious at all it’s never bothered me in the least.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:11 pm to Roger Klarvin
quote:
I’m sure it happens, and I recognize it may be really weird in most places to see so much open acknowledgement of god/religion still in such settings.
I would be OK with neither topic being part of a valedictory address, but seems the liberal position gets a pass from authorities and the media, possibly because the former fears the backlash from the latter. They know the media will lap it up and of course they are sure to give a platform to one of their darlings like Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, the Squad, Lebron etc.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:19 pm to tigersbb
quote:
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.”
Let's be honest, this is what it's about. She wants to be a little whore without any of the responsibility that comes with it. She wants to be able to murder her unborn child in the event she does become pregnant.
Obviously, if you are raped, an abortion should be an option.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:23 pm to tigersbb
quote:Now say this as if you were the baby about to be dismembered and brutally killed in the womb.
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.”
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:27 pm to tigersbb
Does nobody give a shite about the rules around here?
Paxton Smith
Not pregnant, I'm guessing.
#notwithyourdick
Paxton Smith
Not pregnant, I'm guessing.
#notwithyourdick
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:42 pm to tigersbb
Wonder how they would feel if a male valedictorian got on stage to protest his inability to choose to pay child support
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:49 pm to tigersbb
I've always advocated for
save the mother's life- if in danger and mother wants it this way
if raped, abort is okay if mother chooses...
there is nothing wrong with these parameters on the issue of abortion
it's not all or nothing
what we have is millions of babies being aborted each and every year because mothers got knocked up who weren't ready to be mothers... having a child is an inconvenience.
"Not my plan"... " I want planned parenthood"
that's not really the purpose of legalizing abortions but that's what we turned it into...
my body, my choice
I get that argument and I am down with it
but half of me says, okay, then abort your own child, I am not doing it for you....
we seem to have plenty of doctors willing to do it...
that said,
why isn't the morning after pill not talked about more?
save the mother's life- if in danger and mother wants it this way
if raped, abort is okay if mother chooses...
there is nothing wrong with these parameters on the issue of abortion
it's not all or nothing
what we have is millions of babies being aborted each and every year because mothers got knocked up who weren't ready to be mothers... having a child is an inconvenience.
"Not my plan"... " I want planned parenthood"
that's not really the purpose of legalizing abortions but that's what we turned it into...
my body, my choice
I get that argument and I am down with it
but half of me says, okay, then abort your own child, I am not doing it for you....
we seem to have plenty of doctors willing to do it...
that said,
why isn't the morning after pill not talked about more?
Posted on 6/2/21 at 7:52 pm to Paddyshack
quote:
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.”
you could decide to not have sex?
and it's likely you wont get raped but if you do, most people, most Christians would be okay with an abortion if raped. That's how I feel about it
but do it fast...don't wait to learn if you're pregnant
take the morning after pill if raped
Posted on 6/2/21 at 8:01 pm to Paddyshack
quote:
Let's be honest, this is what it's about.
What it's all about is that 2nd and 3rd wave feminists cannot live with the fact that men and women have differences. Both men and women engage in sex, but the biological reality is that only women have to carry babies. This "injustice" infuriates them. Just like it infuriates them that, ceteris paribus, men are stronger than women, or are more likely to be inclined naturally to take risks, or any one of a dozen other differences that they don't see as being fair.
Men can walk away from sex without any biological consequences and women can't. They can't live with that, so they want to be able to kill the baby to even up the ledger.
THAT is what the whole thing is about.
quote:
Obviously, if you are raped, an abortion should be an option.
That is not at all obvious to me. Whether a woman wants to kill a baby because she is jealous of men or whether she wants to kill a baby because she suffered emotional trauma at the baby's conception, the baby still ends up dead and that's the reason it shouldn't be permitted in the first place. Not because of the mother's emotions toward the situation.
In the case of danger to the mother's life, I concede that as a valid reason.
Posted on 6/2/21 at 8:03 pm to tigersbb
quote:
I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does,” she said. “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
She must not have studied statistics.
Abstinence = 100% effective.
quote:
if I’m raped
Just 1% of women obtain an abortion because they became pregnant through rape, and less than 0.5% do so because of incest, according to the Guttmacher Institute. article
Hey, I know, why don't you act like it's COVID and stay in your house 24/7 to keep you safe!?
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