When the Republican Party of Texas released its eight legislative priorities last week, one item immediately stood out. Secure Texas Elections claimed the number one spot. As a longtime grassroots activist, I saw this not merely as a political win but as a profound acknowledgment of what many of us have learned through hard experience.
For more than four decades, my husband Ted and I have poured ourselves into the pro-life cause. From our days as co-directors at Saint Mary’s Student Center, where we hosted expectant mothers in our tiny one-bedroom apartment alongside our infant son Jimmy and our cat Annie, to marching in Washington, D.C., and San Antonio, and serving on the financial steering committee for a major crisis pregnancy center, the defense of unborn life has been woven into the fabric of our marriage and family life.
We did not enter this work for recognition. We did it because the Gospel demands we defend the vulnerable, and because every child is made in the image of God. Yet over time, a troubling pattern emerged. In our deeply conservative, generationally Catholic corner of Texas, pro-life values should be non-negotiable. And still, politicians pursue schemes that undermine them, most recently through taxpayer-funded efforts to bus pregnant mothers out of state for abortions, such as San Antonio’s repeated pushes for its Reproductive Justice Fund.
Why does this disconnect persist? Around 2018 or 2019, I heard Laura Presley speak at a Republican gathering about election integrity. Her words crystallized what I had sensed for years. When politicians do not fear accountability at the ballot box, they grow arrogant. They no longer need to listen to the faithful, pro-life voices of their constituents. The same hardworking, principled people who show up for Life Marches are often the ones demanding clean elections. The overlap is no coincidence.
That realization marked a pivot in my own activism. I remain fiercely pro-life. I always will. But I came to see that securing the integrity of our elections is the necessary foundation for every other priority, including the protection of life. Without honest elections, even the strongest pro-life laws risk being ignored or undermined by those who face no real political consequence.
This week’s announcement from the Republican Party of Texas confirms that truth. Secure Texas Elections sits at number one. At number eight stands Protect Life, a priority that from what I understand was hard-fought on the convention floor against powerful interests that would prefer abortion on demand, much like the policies embraced just across the border in New Mexico. The fact that Protect Life made the top eight at all testifies to the tenacity of pro-life delegates who refuse to let this issue be sidelined.
The connection is clear. When elections are secure, with proof of citizenship, clean voter rolls, and safeguards against fraud, elected officials must answer to the people they serve. In a district as pro-life as ours, that accountability changes everything. It discourages taxpayer schemes that export our babies for destruction. It strengthens the hands of those ministering to mothers and families in crisis. And it makes space for the corporal and spiritual works of mercy that have always been at the heart of our pro-life witness.
As Catholics, we are called to engage the world with both faith and reason. Fides et Ratio reminds us that truth is not divided. The procedural justice of fair elections and the moral imperative to protect innocent life are not competing concerns. They reinforce one another. A constitutional republic functions best when the ballot box truly reflects the will of the governed, especially when that will is shaped by the conviction that every human life is sacred from conception.
To my fellow grassroots activists, pro-life warriors, and faithful Catholics: let us rejoice that election integrity has taken its rightful place at the top of the priorities. But let us also recognize the work is far from over. We must continue pressing for both. Securing the vote is how we ultimately secure the laws that protect our most vulnerable.
The convention delegates have given us a roadmap. Now it is up to each of us, in our precincts and our parishes, to see that it is followed.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.