First Lady Seeks Truce In Abortion Fight

Echoing her husband’s “common ground” theme, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that people who disagree about abortion should unite around an effort to encourage adoptions.

“Instead of yelling at one another about abortion, we should spend our energy making adoptions easier,” Mrs. Clinton wrote in her second newspaper column of a new weekly series.

Mrs. Clinton, a strong supporter of abortion rights, suggested a goal of placing 100,000 children in adoptive homes each year for the next five years. She also lamented the historical bias against interracial adoptions.

The first lady recalled that the first time she met Mother Teresa, it was after the nun had delivered a strong speech against abortion at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994.

“Although we differ on some issues, we found common ground on adoption,” Mrs. Clinton wrote. “So we sat and talked about how to find homes for the hundreds of thousands of American children who need loving families.”

Mrs. Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, this spring visited Mother Teresa’s orphanage in New Delhi, India, where rows of cribs were stacked three-deep in places but the babies were clearly well cared for.

Since then, Mrs. Clinton has helped Mother Teresa open a Washington home for children awaiting adoption.