Pregnancy does not doom a woman’s chances for education, career, says Fresno State student

Dallas High School student Paxton Smith gave a valedictorian speech that went viral for criticizing the Texas “heartbeat bill” prohibiting abortion after six weeks, when the child’s heartbeat is detectable. Paxton’s speech has been hailed by some as a brave defense of “women’s rights,” but when examining the assumptions behind her statements, it is evident that her speech stems from incorrect, harmful perceptions of motherhood, women, and their place within academics. Consequently, her speech reinforces the misconception that women’s biological nature — their fertility and ability to get pregnant — makes them disadvantaged, unfit participants in the world of academics.

Paxton states, “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.” The atrocity of rape is not the focus of her speech. She is not pleading for safer college campuses, or for legislation that can help protect women against rape. Her concern is not the failure rate of contraceptives. The unnamed “danger” alluded to throughout the entire speech is women’s ability to become pregnant. According to Paxton, hopes, aspirations, dreams, and efforts for the future end when pregnancy begins.

This is what I find truly alarming: an academically successful young girl in her cap and gown using her position of achievement to portray the erroneous idea that educational advancement and motherhood do not mix. Women throughout history have fought against this idea as their biological ability to become pregnant and their privilege to be mothers have been used as excuses for excluding women from intellectual settings and positions.

In the 21st century, we pride ourselves in proclaiming that women can be authors, doctors, scientists, etc. Yet, also in a 21st century graduation ceremony, when celebrating academic success and college aspirations, we women are deceived and told that the most fearful enemy of our dreams is motherhood. You can be anything but a mother — if you wish to be successful, that is.

If we portray pregnancy as the antithesis of success that prevents women from one day standing on stage, cap and gown on and college diploma in hand, have we really discarded the sexist assumption that women do not belong in universities? Can we truly separate motherhood from womanhood far enough to the point that an exclusion of the former does not equate to an attack against the latter?

By painting an image of the ideal female college student as childless, Paxton’s statements are offensive and discouraging to college students who are mothers and to mothers who wish to obtain a college education. We should not support the assumption that a woman must give up her education because she chooses to be a mother, or that a woman has to reject her child to pursue an education.

On the contrary, our goal should always be to encourage women by creating a helpful environment with the resources necessary for women to fulfill their vocations as mothers and students.

As a college student, I have witnessed the strength of women who wholeheartedly embrace academics and motherhood. Talking to these women has led me to notice a usual pattern: motherhood is always cited as the motivation to persevere beyond the difficulties of college life. The beauty and vulnerability of their children inspires these women to improve their minds and to work diligently for themselves and their families.

While some view Paxton’s speech as a defense of “women’s choice,” it offers women no choice, nor hope. According to her view, abortion constitutes the only option for women to be free of the ever-present “danger” that pregnancy imposes on their academic goals. It promotes abortion by pitting women against their bodies’ natural fertility. This is not the message that I and many other women in Fresno State and throughout the nation wish to impart on women and young girls. Motherhood does not require you to forfeit your dreams. There are also other options, like adoption, that don’t involve stopping a heartbeat or the psychological trauma that often follows an abortion.

Education is not about climbing the ladder of success at all costs, even to the point of hurting oneself and others. It is about how one can prepare oneself and contribute one’s mind to the betterment of society, including society’s most vulnerable. “There is a war on my body,” states Paxton, but the war most evident in her speech is that which is waged against women’s biological fertility and the vocation of motherhood as something to be feared, to be pitied. There is a war against women’s bodies, all right, and that war has resulted in approximately 60 million dead children and millions of grieving, suffering women. We can and ought to do better for women and their children.