Texas writer Larry McMurtry once observed, “It’s a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.” True words. And let’s put our hands together for the Texas high school kid who has now highlighted one particular hardship foisted on the women of Texas this spring by the state’s right-wing Big Brother government.
Paxton Smith, the valedictorian of her Dallas senior class, has more courage than any carload of quaking politicians. At her school’s commencement ceremony the other day, she was supposed to talk about the media in a short speech that had been vetted in advance by the adult bigwigs. But when she reached the podium, she pulled out a different speech vetted in advance only by her own conscience.
As you may know, Texas Republican lawmakers and their batty governor have a demented sense of right and wrong. They recently enacted a law that bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy – before many women even know whether they’re pregnant – thus flagrantly defying the constitutional right encoded in Roe v. Wade. According to Gov. Greg Abbott, “our creator endowed us with the right to life.” Meanwhile, they also enacted a law allowing gun owners to tote their weaponry in public without training or background checks. So the apparent ethos in Texas is that life begins at conception and it ends at the supermarket or the mall or the school or the shopping center or the movie theater.
Anyway, Paxton Smith decided to speak her mind and brave whatever backlash came her way; as Eleanor Roosevelt once said about courage, “You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” Her remarks quickly went viral:
“As we leave high school we need to make our voices heard. I was going to get up here and talk to you about TV and content and media because those are things that are very important to me. However, in light of recent events, it feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state.
“Recently the heartbeat bill was passed in Texas. 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. Most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant by then. And so, before they have the time to decide if they are emotionally, physically, and financially stable enough to carry out a full-term pregnancy, before they have the chance to decide if they can take on the responsibility of bringing another human into the world, the decision has been made for them by a stranger. A decision that will affect the rest of their lives.
“I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does. 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.
“And I’m talking about this today, on a day as important as this, on a day honoring the students’ efforts in twelve years of schooling, on a day where we’re all brought together, on a day where you will be the most inclined to hear a voice like mine, a woman’s voice, to tell you that this is a problem. A problem that can’t wait. 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. A war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot stay silent.”
She later reported that after she left the podium, “a couple of ladies pulled me aside and told me the school was considering withholding my diploma.” Fortunately that didn’t happen, but since half the audience had reportedly sat silent as she’d spoken, the censorious sentiment was certainly not surprising. Props to Smith for not caring a whit. As she later said, the commencement ceremony “was the only place I could think of where I could reach so many people from so many different backgrounds…This is a universal topic, and it affects everyone. I felt it needed to be said.”
There are millions of young people like Smith who are well aware of what’s going on in this country, and their voices will be crucial in the fight to save democracy. The gutless need not apply. As Rosa Parks said generations ago, “Stand for something, or you will fall for anything.”
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Hey, remember Mike Pence? Who briefly stood for something in January, when he did his job to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election victory? During a speech he delivered yesterday in New Hampshire, he said this:
“January 6th was a dark day in the history of our U.S. Capitol…You know, President Trump and I have spoken several times since we left office and I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day.”
It would’ve been more refreshing if Pence had merely stated the obvious:
“You know, President Trump and I still disagree about that day. He would’ve been fine if I’d died. But my view is, I prefer not to be dead.”
If only Pence – and the rest of the Republican caucus – had a scintilla of Paxton Smith’s courage.