Texas' viral valedictorian: Where is she now?

Brut America

She switched out her valedictorian speech to speak about abortion rights — a move that made her go viral and almost lose her diploma.   Brut caught up with Paxton Smith one year later.

Transcript

00:00I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail, then my hopes and aspirations and dreams and

00:07efforts for my future will no longer matter. I knew that by giving the speech that I might

00:12lose some friends, some bridges might be burned, but I knew that ultimately

00:17this was something that had to be said.

00:31I hope you can feel how dehumanizing

00:34it is to have the autonomy over your own body taken away from you.

00:38Some teachers, some staff members were extremely supportive, very kind about it,

00:49but some were really upset and actually wanted me to not receive my diploma,

00:56but I ended up ultimately getting it.

01:08I actually received hundreds, hundreds of messages from people just reaching out to

01:21thank me, but also people reaching out to tell me their stories. And the most striking of those

01:27stories to me were always the ones from people who had had abortions before Roe v. Wade because

01:32they knew what it was like. They knew how bad things were.

01:38We are not vessels for reproduction. We are human beings.

01:52And it is about time that we get treated like it.

01:55I've joined the board of directors for a national nonprofit that funds abortions

02:00called the Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, WRAP. I've traveled the country speaking

02:06out for abortion rights. I was recently in Switzerland for an international human rights

02:11forum where I sat on a couple of panels. I came out with a book on the issue. So this is something

02:16that has just become a part of my daily life that this is something that I advocate for.

02:37I can't see a world where the constitution doesn't protect a person's right to control

02:43their own body and more importantly, control their own life. Something that we're not talking

02:47enough about is that abortion even before now has been so inaccessible that a lot of people

02:54haven't been able to get abortions for a while now. And disproportionately, the people who haven't

03:00been able to get abortions are people of color and people living in poverty. And those same people

03:05are going to be the ones most affected by the removal of this right. Because, you know,

03:12people with money, people with power, they can always get abortions. I mean, we look back in

03:16history less than 50 years ago, and our country lost thousands of people, tens of thousands of

03:23people lost their lives to unsafe, illegal abortion, because they couldn't get that

03:28health care. It was illegal. And also, as states begin to criminalize abortion, I'm worried that

03:34people who are found out for having abortions, people who have miscarriages, could be sent to

03:39prison for murder, for homicide. The principles of this nation are freedom, liberty, and equality.

03:56When a government turns its back on those principles, we will not stay silent about it.

04:01I think a lot of times we look at activism and we go, that's hard. That's time consuming. I don't

04:07even know where to start. Get out there, take to the streets, donate to organizations, volunteer

04:13your time, uplift and amplify people's stories. There are so many avenues that you can take in

04:18your activism. But at this point in time, if you're deciding to stay silent, then you're

04:23part of the problem. And I'm urging you to do something.

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