way that the Missionaries of Charity could possibly care for every single
one. Although abortion clinics were available, they were rare and costly,
hardly justifying Mother Teresa’s outrage. Outlawing abortions might
cause women to try to abort their unborn child themselves, often with ter-
rible and fatal results. In the face of such criticism, Mother Teresa stood
her ground and never veered away from the Church’s teachings on birth
control and abortion. But the controversy was far from over; in the years
to come, Mother Teresa would be a visible target for pro-choice advocates
the world over.REACHING OUT IN OTHER WAYS
Besides organizing the children’s homes, Mother Teresa reached out to
the poor in other ways. In 1956, she organized her first mobile clinic to
help those who could not get to one of the free clinics. She was aided by
Catholic Relief Services in New York City, which donated $5,000 to
transform an old van into a traveling medical dispensary that visited the
slums throughout the city offering free medical services. With the help of
some doctors, a small laboratory was set up in Shishu Bhavan to do med-
ical testing.
The Shishu Bhavan also became a buzzing center of activity for feeding
the poor. In the home’s small kitchen, the sisters cooked as much rice as
they could, which they handed out along with bananas. On any given af-
ternoon, there were anywhere from 50 to 100 women with children wait-
ing to receive food. For many, this was the only meal of the day.
There were some hazards in providing the free food. On one occasion,
the sisters had nothing to give out for that day, for the agency that sup-
plied them had stopped sending food to the home. The hungry crowd
grew angrier and angrier; some even tried to set fire to the home. At one
point Mother Teresa pushed back with surprising strength a whole line of
women who rushed forward to receive their food. It was only because of
the arrival of the police and fire brigade that the incident did not esca-
late into something more serious. On another, less dangerous occasion,
the kitchen ran out of plates and the sisters used dinner plates from the
Motherhouse to give to the poor.
TENDING TO THE UNCLEAN
Mother Teresa introduced the mobile dispensary in 1956 in response to
another growing problem on the Calcutta streets: lepers. Earlier, the
Gobra hospital, which housed many of the city’s leprosy cases, had closed,
84 MOTHER TERESA