Feb 3: Pro-Life Day

“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.  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, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world.  The 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.

Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on.  Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States.  These concerns are very good.  But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers.  And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today – abortion which brings people to such blindness.

And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere – “Let us bring the child back.”  The child is God’s gift to the family.  Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things – to love and to be loved.  We must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern.  This is the only way that our world can survive because our children are the only hope for the future.  As older people are called to God, only their children can take their places.

But what does God say to us?  He says: “Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you.  I have carved you in the palm of my hand.” We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and loved, not only now in this life, but forever.  God can never forget us.”

I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning.  The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception.  In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self.  This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gifts of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception.  Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.

I also know that there are great problems in the world – that many spouses do not love each other enough to practice natural family planning.  We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love.  And this is what happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion.

The poor are very great people.  They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning and said: “You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people to teach us natural family planning because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other.”  And what this poor person said is very true.  These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich.

Let us make that one point – that no child will be unwanted, unloved, uncared for, or killed and thrown away.  And give until it hurts – with a smile.

                                                                                                                                                             –     from the address of Mother Teresa at the National Prayer Breakfast (Sponsored by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives) February 3, 1994