Mother Teresa: A Courageous Voice for the Unborn

On September 4^th, Pope Francis will declare Mother Teresa of Calcutta a Saint. This is not surprising: Catholics and non-Catholics alike already consider her a saint as she is fondly remembered throughout the world for her selfless love and heroic work on behalf of the destitute. Indeed, when we fail to achieve a certain spiritual or moral standard we often exclaim: “Well I guess I’m no Mother Teresa!” So, with such unanimous respect and admiration for Mother Teresa, it is very unfortunate that more weight isn’t given to what she had to say about the moral and spiritual imperative of protecting unborn children.

In fact, Mother Teresa’s core message to political leaders was never about the plight of the poor, or the violence of war, or the greed of the wealthy…..it was always about loving unborn children and the deadly evil of abortion spreading throughout the world. She never missed an opportunity to speak bravely about the innocent victims of abortion – unborn children. So, as she is about to be honoured with official sainthood, it is only fitting that we recall a couple of key excerpts from two of her most memorable public speeches.

In her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace price awarded to her in 1979, she stated: “The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here…we would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions? Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child – what is left for me to kill you and you kill me?”

In 1994, Mother Teresa addressed roughly 3,000 people at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, with president Bill Clinton and Hillary in attendance: “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. 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…. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want….which brings people to such blindness.”

When Mother Teresa finished speaking applause swept across the room, erupting into a standing ovation lasting about six minutes. However, having just implemented measures making abortion more available, neither Bill nor Hillary applauded or stood. Awkward. And now, twenty-two years later, as Mother Teresa is being declared a saint, Hillary Clinton is promising to fully-fund abortion if she is declared president.