Taking Heat Over Mother Teresa

A Catholic advocacy group is urging New York Senator Hillary Clinton to remove an image of Mother Teresa from a campaign video narrated by former President Bill Clinton:

"It is wholly inappropriate, disrespectful and disturbing that Hillary Clinton is using an image of Blessed Mother Teresa as a political tool, especially given their radically different views on abortion," said Fidelis President Joseph Cella.

He noted that Mother Teresa fought to protect unborn children, while Hillary Clinton "staunchly supports abortion on demand in all nine months of pregnancy, including partial birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion."

A shot of Mother Teresa standing with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton appears in the five-minute campaign video. The video then cuts to a clip of Mrs. Clinton's address at the 1995 Beijing Conference, in which she says, "It is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights." The Beijing Conference tried to declare abortion a fundamental human right, something the video fails to mention. The video of Hillary's campaign video is available here.

Mother Teresa sent a letter to the 1995 Beijing Conference in which she condemned abortion:

That special power of loving that belongs to a woman is seen most clearly when she becomes a mother. Motherhood is the gift of God to women....Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion .... No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of 'freedom' can take the place of love.

It was a huge mistake on the part of Hillary to allow the video to cut from the picture of Hillary and Mother Teresa to the Beijing Conference. Inappropriate, disrespectful and misleading.