Our Story is Not Finished

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It has been a little over a week since I last wrote to you, and so much is happening across our region and our country. Through all of it, I keep coming back to one conviction:

Our story is not finished.

Along our border, Texas and New Mexico are deeply connected. What happens in one state affects families in the other, and abortion is exploiting that connection.

Our sidewalk teams recently counted 75 women entering abortion facilities in Santa Teresa and Las Cruces in one week. Of those, 71 arrived in vehicles with Texas plates. It is a sobering reminder that New Mexico’s abortion industry is directly affecting women and families on both sides of our border.

And our Stop the Center campaign is far from over. We continue working every avenue available to delay construction of the taxpayer-funded abortion facility in Las Cruces, while mobilizing our communities to prayer and action.

And we know what is at stake. Organizations like West Fund, based in El Paso, raise money to help people access abortions throughout our region. According to its executive director, West Fund provided grants to Full Circle Health Center in Las Cruces and Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, helping pay for 600 abortions at those two facilities.

While the abortion industry mobilizes resources to make abortion more accessible, Southwest Coalition is working every day to make motherhood possible. We are mobilizing our resources to tell every woman, whether she lives in Texas or New Mexico, you are not alone. We will help you. We will walk with you. There is another way.

This is the Southwest we are building. Through Guiding Star Southwest Birth and Wellness Center, The Lily Pad Maternity Home, and our other ministries, we surround women and their children with the care, resources, and community they need to thrive. But lasting change also requires laws and leaders who protect human life.

Look at what is happening across our country.

This month, Massachusetts moved further toward abortion by changing its laws, allowing abortions up to birth.

Georgia and Puerto Rico show us another direction is possible. Georgia law recognizes an unborn child as a human being and natural person, while Puerto Rico recently enacted protections recognizing unborn human life at every stage of gestation. Hearts can change. Leaders can change. Laws can change.

That should give those of us in Texas and New Mexico tremendous hope. Hearts can change. Leaders can change. Laws can change.

When God-fearing men and women who respect human dignity are elected to office, they have an opportunity to protect those values in law. But that privilege carries a responsibility for us too.

We must educate ourselves, know how our elected officials vote, participate in elections, and teach our children the responsibility that comes with freedom. We should raise a generation that understands that their faith belongs not only inside the walls of a church, but should form how they live as citizens.

Our hope is in God. But He has placed us in a nation where we are free to pray publicly, speak peacefully, assemble, petition our government, and vote.

Those freedoms are gifts, and we should not waste them.

Earlier this year, a federal court ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments monument at the Arkansas State Capitol, though the order is stayed during appeal. The case also involved The Satanic Temple’s effort to place its Baphomet monument on the Capitol grounds.

The court did not order Baphomet erected, but the larger lesson should get our attention.

Those who want to shape our culture are willing to organize, speak, litigate, gather, and make their presence known. We cannot afford to be silent or absent from the public square.

We know the power of prayer. But there are defining moments when prayer must be supported by presence.

On Saturday, September 12, the Spiritual Defense Coalition is calling people of faith from New Mexico, Texas, and across our region to come together in Las Cruces for a Statewide Prayer Rally.

📅WHEN: Saturday, September 12, 2026 at 9:00 AM

📍WHERE: 4425 E. Lohman Ave., Las Cruces, NM

We will gather at the construction site to pray for our leaders, those involved in building and supporting this facility, and especially the mothers and fathers impacted by abortion. We will pray for conversion of hearts, because no person is our enemy.

But prayer must be supported by presence. At our last rally, you showed up.

Families, children, Texans, New Mexicans and Juarenses, Catholics and non-Catholics stood together in peaceful prayer for the dignity of human life. Now we need to do it again.

This is not simply a New Mexico issue. Those 71 Texas plates prove it. What happens across our border affects all of us.

On September 12, let’s stand together and proclaim: Women deserve better. Children deserve protection. Families deserve support. Together, we can build a culture of life throughout the Southwest.

Our story is not finished.

Prayer. Presence. Purpose.

I’ll see you September 12.

Standing with you for Life,

Jessica Sifuentes
President & CEO
Southwest Coalition

P.S. Save one more date. On September 18, Bishop Peter Baldacchino will bless our new Southwest Coalition office. This is a beautiful milestone for our mission, and I would love for you to join us as we dedicate this new space and the work that will happen within it to God. More info to follow.