My 7th grade daughter's letter to the editor

When me and my dad were driving back from school on Friday my Dad told me the terrible news that the House of Representatives failed to pass a bill that would help protect girls my age all over the world from being forced into marriages. As a seventh grader I can’t even imagine what is must be like for girls my age or younger to be forced to marry men as old as my dad and have their children soon after.

I don’t understand why after every member of the Senate voted to pass the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act – S. 987 our local Congressman Lamar Smith voted against it. Mr. Smith claims to be “pro-life” but seems to think it’s “OK” for young girls to die when their bodies aren’t strong enough and ready to have a baby? Why doesn’t he care?

I later found out that some people lied and said that bill would have funded abortions, but anybody can read the bill, which is less than six pages long, and see that it’s not true. Lamar Smith was either too lazy to read the bill or he just doesn’t care about kids because we can’t vote.