DR. MILDRED JEFFERSON INSPIRED AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF PRO-LIFE LEADERS

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Today, I want to recognize and honor the life of Dr. Mildred Jefferson, who passed away on October 15, 2010, at the age of 84.

Dr. Jefferson was a trailblazer of her time. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first female surgical intern at Boston City Hospital and the first woman admitted to membership in the Boston Surgical Society.

Dr. Jefferson was born in Pittsburg, Texas, on April 6, 1926, to Millard Jefferson, a minister and Gurthie Jefferson a schoolteacher. She graduated from Texas College in Tyler and earned a master's degree from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts before attending Harvard Medical School. In her lifetime she also was the recipient of 28 honorary degrees.

Her life was historic in many ways, yet she will be remembered not only for the lives she saved as a physician but also for the lives she saved as an advocate for the unborn.

From the earliest years of the right to life movement, she dedicated herself to the cause, always beautifully articulating the humanity of unborn children. Poised and passionate, always focused and extremely devoted, she made history and inspired an entire generation of pro-life leaders myself included. It was always an inspiring experience to listen to Dr. Jefferson speak so eloquently with deep compassion for the lives of children in the womb.

Dr. Jefferson was among the founders of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and from 1975-1978 she served three terms as President of NRLC. She also served as director of Massachusetts Citizens for Life and a boardmember of American Life League. She was also a founding member of the board and a past president of the Value of Life Committee of Massachusetts and was active in Black Americans for Life.

Among all of her accolades and accomplishments, she should be best known for her own eloquent description of why she stood in solidarity with the unborn fighting day in and day out for their first right, the right to life. In her own words,

"I became a physician in order to help save lives. I am at once a physician, a citizen, and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow the concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live."

Dr. Jefferson was always graceful. She embodied compassion. Her life is an example to us of the impact of faithful devotion to the sanctity of human life. Dr. Jefferson knew that you cannot speak of human and civil rights, while precluding virtually all protection to the most persecuted minority in the world today: unborn children.

She reminded us all,

"The right-to-life cause is not the concern of only a special few but it should be the cause of all those who care about fairness and justice, love and compassion and liberty with law."

Dr. Jefferson is correct when she said, -the cause for the right to life concerns all of us. Someday, when our goal of ending abortion is finally realized, future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why such a rich and seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with the capacity to protect and enhance vulnerable human life, could have instead permitted, and even promoted, death to children and exploitation of women by abortion.

It was an honor to work alongside Dr. Jefferson to fight the injustice of abortion, and I know her legacy and memory will live on in the lives of those who knew her and in the lives of the unborn children she helped save.