{"id":246522,"date":"2021-06-07T16:39:01","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T21:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=246522"},"modified":"2022-07-17T12:34:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T17:34:01","slug":"pro-life-women-valedictorian-nothing-restored-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pro-life-women-valedictorian-nothing-restored-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-life women react to pro-abortion valedictorian: ‘Nothing is restored’ by abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Texas high school valedictorian Paxton Smith quickly became a pro-abortion media darling after making a speech about how she is “terrified” that she might not have the ability to abort her child (due to a Texas ‘heartbeat bill<\/a>‘ restricting abortion) should she become unexpectedly pregnant. The underlying idea in Smith’s speech is that such an occurrence would ruin her entire life, though millions of women’s lived experiences have demonstrated the opposite. In her graduation speech, Smith said in part:<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

But pregnancy \u2014 no matter the circumstance \u2014 does not end aspirations or dreams or a future. There is a strong likelihood that some mothers in the audience hearing Smith’s speech actually experienced unplanned pregnancies, chose life, and were there that day to see those children graduate<\/em>. Ending someone else’s future for the sake of their own was not an option for them.<\/p>\n

Smith’s speech dehumanizes the human beings killed by abortion by ignoring their existence entirely. And yet, these children are the casualties of a sexual revolution<\/a> that has told men and women they have a right to sex without the natural, biological result: children. Countless millions upon millions of\u00a0human beings have been eradicated and women have been harmed as a result of this “war.”<\/p>\n