Pro-life activist who regrets her abortion issues powerful rebuttal to pro-choice valedictorian Paxton Smith

Pro-life activist Toni McFadden — a staff member with Students for Life of America — penned a powerful rebuttal to Paxton Smith, the Texas high school valedictorian who recently dumped her approved graduation speech so she could rant against the state's "heartbeat bill."

And McFadden made her point with a letter to her own two daughters, telling them to not look up to the likes of Smith.

"She may have the ability to string together emotionally driven words, but if they are not founded in truth it will lead to destruction," McFadden emphasized.

McFadden explained in her letter that when she was Smith's age, she got pregnant and "believed the lie that ending the life of my child would restore my dreams, my goals and my aspirations."

It was a decision she regrets:

After consuming poisonous pills to end the life of my baby, your sibling, that is not what happened. Nothing was restored.

It was all a lie. The regret settled in, but I quickly pushed it down to survive. There is nothing natural about taking the life of your own child. I do not care how empowering someone like Ms. Paxton may make it sound. The reality is I had no right to take the life of my innocent child for my own selfish gain.

The last thing I would ever want for my beautiful girls is to believe that lie.

She concluded her letter to her daughters by telling them "what makes you a powerful woman is unapologetically being who God created you to be. It's standing in truth even when the world is trying to convince you to live in lies. I pray Ms. Paxton will someday take her gift of intelligence and use it to protect life, not promote death."

What's the background?

Part of Smith's speech to fellow graduates of Lake Highlands High School in Dallas read, "I have dreams and hopes and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does. And we have spent our entire lives working toward 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 hope that you can feel how gut-wrenching that is. I hope that you can feel how dehumanizing it is to have the autonomy over your own body taken away from you."

Here's Smith's speech in full:

Paxton Smith Speech at Lake Highlands Graduationyoutu.be

While Smith's speech was a surprise to administrators — who later reportedly indicated they could respond by denying her diploma, although that seemed a remote possibility — it was no shock at all that leftists far and wide praised Smith's strident words.

Among her new fans was former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton who tweeted, "This took guts. Thank you for not staying silent, Paxton."

Anything else?

For a completely different point of view on the abortion issue, here's McFadden talking about this year's March for Life in Washington, D.C., and her reasons for participating:

Why Toni McFadden with Students for Life is marching for lifeyoutu.be