Live Action News has previously reported that Diane Derzis, the Mississippi abortionist whose business was the plaintiff in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court case that led to the June 24th overturning of Roe v. Wade, closed up shop in her home state and is slated to open a new facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
That facility is expected to open for surgical and chemical abortions later this month, joining one other abortion facility in the town of 111,000 plus another facility 45 minutes away in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. But on Tuesday evening, Southwest Coalition for Life — which formed in response to the opening of Las Cruces’ first abortion center back in 2015 — hosted a pro-life rally to announce their response to the new abortion facility.
While the opening of pregnancy care centers near or next to abortion facilities is a welcome and fairly expected response in the pro-life movement, Southwest Coalition for Life surprised the crowd by sharing their plans to open a Guiding Star Project women’s health center across the driveway from Derzis’ business.
Guiding Star Project facilities provide the full spectrum of authentically pro-life women’s health care services, natural fertility and family planning services, pregnancy and childbirth services, and breastfeeding and postpartum services, as well as drop-in child care for children of their clients.
Guiding Star Project founder Leah Jacobson, who previously shared GSP’s vision with Live Action News, spoke about how combatting the atrocity of abortion by providing truly pro-life women’s healthcare. She commented, “We need to listen to the voices of women that are feeling that abortion is their best option. Why are women in our country choosing abortions? Yes, we know it’s a predatory industry. Yes, we know that their are healthcare providers that prey upon women’s insecurities, women’s fears. But let’s stop, let’s talk about why they are insecure, why they are afraid? What is so scary about living in a female body in our time and place in this world?”
Counter the cultural mindset that women’s fertility holds them back and that children prevent them from achieving their dreams, she observed, “Pregnancy is not a disease. Fertility is a gift, not a burden. The ability to breastfeed, to hold our babies, to care for them, to nurture them with our bodies – these are superpowers that women have.”
READ: New Mexico sets the stage to become a destination for abortion seekers
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 59% of women procuring abortions are already mothers of older children. Jacobson noted, “If we love life, if we want to protect women and children, we need to understand that there is something fundamentally broken about motherhood in our culture.”
Citing her personal experience of birthing and raising seven children as well as the testimonies of women from across the country who she’s counseled as a lactation consultant via telehealth, she stated, “If we truly love women, if we truly love life, we are going to do everything in our power to fix the healthcare that they are receiving.” This cultural gap is precisely what GSP seeks to rectify. Even as New Mexico lacks any meaningful restriction on abortion, GSP aims to step into the gap by providing the medical (and emotional) care women and their families so desperately need.
Southwest Coalition for Life Executive Director Mark Cavaliere celebrated the coming of the GSP center in a building his organization has leased. He urged, “Let’s provide all the health care services that organizations like Planned Parenthood pretend to do… Let’s actually step up and do more to provide life-affirming health care…. We’ve seen what God can do. If ever there was a people to rise up and say that women deserve better that abortion and we’re going to be the ones to give them better – it’s the people here.”
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