St. Gianna Molla

St. Gianna Beretta Molla was born on 4 October 1922 in Magenta, near Milan, Italy. A devout laywoman, she trained as a physician and specialized in pediatrics, combining her medical practice with an active devotion and a love of the mountains and skiing. In 1955 she married Pietro Molla, and the couple had three children, building a home marked by joyful and ordinary holiness.

During her fourth pregnancy in 1961, doctors discovered a fibroma in her uterus. Refusing both an abortion and a hysterectomy that would have ended the child's life, she chose the option that preserved her baby while gravely endangering herself, telling her doctor to save the child if a choice had to be made. Her daughter Gianna Emanuela was born safely on 21 April 1962, but Gianna died of septic peritonitis a week later, on 28 April. Canonized in 2004 with her husband present, she is honored as a patron of mothers, physicians, and the unborn.