Charlotte Pence Bond emphasizes one in her recent essay on The Daily Wire.  She quotes the much-promoted speech of a Texas high school valedictorian:

The speaker, Paxton Smith, had originally planned to speak to attendees of Lake Highlands High School’s graduation about the role of media in the world but decided to change it, unbeknownst to school administrators.

As The Daily Wire reported, after Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed an abortion law that will prohibit Texas clinics from performing or inducing abortions once a fetal heartbeat has been detected, Smith chose to change the focus of her speech. During her speech, she claimed that the “heartbeat bill,” as such legislation is often called, was de-humanizing and deprived her of bodily autonomy.

She went on to say that the bill would negatively impact the “dreams and hopes and ambitions” of women in Texas. “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.”

She added that she is “terrified” that if her contraceptives don’t work, or if she is “raped,” then her “hopes and aspirations and dreams and efforts” for her future “will no longer matter.” …

The question comes to mind: Who told Smith that this was the case? Who made this young woman believe that her dreams would no longer matter if she unexpectedly became a mother?

It takes a long cultural campaign to make young women believe their lives will end after the birth of a child.  That’s especially true for young women from nuclear families with extensive support systems.

Viewed correctly, pregnancy and childbirth can bring enhanced fulfillment, even when unintended.  Beyond support from family, stigmas surrounding out-of-wedlock births have almost disappeared, and laws increasingly require accommodation of single mothers.

Where it is not an enhancement, most young women will find pregnancy and motherhood to be only the sort of challenge or inconvenience we often come across in life.  While not life-ending, it may be, well, inconvenient, but a properly adjusted attitude puts the other falsehood in Smith’s speech in stark relief.

Namely, if she is terrified by the prospect that her contraceptives won’t work, she can avoid having sex.  Except for the criminal assault of rape, she really does have bodily autonomy.  She can absolutely choose not to risk pregnancy.

This is important to acknowledge, because in the vast majority of cases, abortion is not a cost-free corrective to save a woman from a calamitous and spontaneous development.  Rather, abortion kills a child typically in order to allow the mother to avoid any hardship after she made a decision to take a risk.

We can argue about rights, as well as whether and where to make distinctions between different cases, but Smith’s attitude is the consequence of propaganda and indoctrination to make the conversation seem like something it’s not.