Pro-life saint

last updated 8 January 2015

Rome

Pope John Paul II this week canonized an Italian woman who died in 1962, after she refused an abortion that could have saved her life. Doctors had told Gianna Beretta Molla that she had a tumor in her uterus and would die if she carried her pregnancy to term. But Molla, a mother of three and a pediatrician, refused any treatment that might harm the fetus. Her 91-year-old widower attended the ceremony, along with the daughter she died giving birth to. Molla is the first married woman to be made a saint in centuries. The pope praised her “extreme sacrifice” and said she was an example of “the pure, chaste, and fruitful beauty of conjugal love.”