Tipsheet

Chelsea Clinton: I Left the Church at Age Six Over Abortion

Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said in an interview at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser that she left the Baptist church because she was not happy that she was told about abortion when she was a 6-year-old.

From LifeNews:

“I find it quite insulting sometimes when people say to my mom, my dad or me . . . that they question our faith,’ said Chelsea. “I was raised in a Methodist church and I left the Baptist church before my dad did, because I didn’t know why they were talking to me about abortion when I was 6 in Sunday school — that’s a true story.”

“My mother is very deeply a person of faith,” Chelsea said. “It is deeply authentic and real for my mother, and it guides so much of her moral compass, but also her life’s work.”

“I recognized that there were many expressions of faith that I don’t agree with and feel [are] quite antithetical to how I read the Bible,” Chelsea said. “But I find it really challenging when people who are self-professed liberals kind of look askance at my family’s history.”

On Twitter, many people raised eyebrows at Chelsea's story:

Now, while I'm not a Baptist and I've never been to church in Arkansas, but as someone who helped teach C.C.D. classes to kindergarteners at my parish for two years while I was in high school, I am positive that nothing involving abortion was ever mentioned to my students in my classroom. It's not appropriate to discuss abortion to someone who is that young, and that topic should be saved for someone who is more mature and able to understand what is happening. Further, most 6-year-olds I taught were far more concerned with coloring than social issues.