On the morning of February 3, 1994, a diminutive 83-year-old nun gave a speech to 3,000 people at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Starting slowly and barely visible behind the lectern and microphones, she delivered a powerful message that still resonates today.
Mother Teresa spoke forcefully about abortion, calling it “the greatest destroyer of peace today,” “a war against the child” and “a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.” She continued, with implacable logic:
“And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
“By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.
“And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.
“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
These words are powerful not only because they are true but also because they were spoken by someone who had devoted her life to living that truth. For these remarks, and for her mere presence on the dais, Mother Teresa received a standing ovation. Conspicuously not clapping were two people sitting just a few feet away from her: The president, Bill Clinton, and the first lady, Hillary Clinton.
Today, at a canonization ceremony at the Vatican, Mother Teresa will become a saint. The Albanian-born nun founded the Missionaries of Charity in India, in 1950, to the poorest of the poor, the unloved, and shunned. Today, the Missionaries of Charity has thousands of members active in more than 130 countries.
Mother Teresa helped orphans, unwed mothers, the elderly and poor and those with disabilities. She also helped those with devastating diseases such as leprosy and AIDS. She and her fellow missionaries took them in, cared for them and loved them.
Mother Teresa was also a fierce advocate for unborn babies. This made her an object of scorn among many feminists and abortion-rights advocates, but not Hillary Clinton.
After her speech at the Prayer Breakfast, Mother Teresa approached Clinton, told her she disagreed with her support for abortion and implored her to give her any unwanted child. Teresa told Clinton that she would pass him or her along to a married couple willing to adopt.
Hillary agreed to work with Mother Teresa and visited her in India soon after. The next year, the two reunited again, opening a center for unwed mothers and their babies waiting adoption in Washington.
Typical of Clinton, and of most politicians, she exploited her acquaintance with Teresa, frequently mentioning it in speeches and in her books; when we encounter holiness we don’t easily let it go.
It is hard to imagine such common ground being found today. Abortion-rights advocates rarely if ever mention adoption as an alternative to abortion. Indeed they object when others do. Hillary Clinton now heads a party with a platform that no longer seeks to make abortion “rare,” only “safe,” “legal” and, in a recent addition, paid for by taxpayers.
It took a very special woman to prompt Clinton to compromise on her hardline abortion views. As it turns out, it took a saint. But now the saint is gone, and so has Clinton’s willingness to compromise.
