"I have dreams and hopes and ambition. Every girl graduating today does. We have spent our entire lives working towards our future, and without our input and without our consent, our control over that future has been stripped away from us. 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 couldn't keep my mind on the project. My mind kept wandering to the `heartbeat bill' and what it meant. So, I started making some notes," she told The Associated Press. "I thought it would die right there," she said. But she saw tears in her audience midway through the speech. In the days since, video of her address posted on social media and retweeted broadly has drawn kudos from comedian Sarah Silverman, who tweeted, "Brave," and former U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who tweeted: "This took guts. Thank you for not staying silent, Paxton.
What a brave young lady. Good for her!
Brave young woman.
Way to go! Future Bad ass leader!
Good for her!!!!!!!!
Canadian Grads will have to do this too if the Conservatives ever form government again.
Paxton is the kind of person I hope to be when I grow up
Queen
I *think* I know what you were going for with this headline. But did the approved speech call out the abortion ban, or did the valedictorian? Perhaps 'Texas valedictorian scraps approved speech to call out abortion ban instead'
Good for her! ❤️
🙌