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.
Brut caught up with Paxton Smith one year later.
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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.