What’s a pro-abortion activist to do when her husband’s grandparents are “very Catholic” and pro-life? That’s the question one woman asked when she wrote to The Jewish Daily Forward's Seesaw advice column seeking guidance on how to convince her husband's grandparents to support abortion-on-demand.
“I am Jewish and a longtime pro-choice activist who is married to a half-Jewish, half-Catholic man,” wrote the anonymous activist. “He was raised more Jewish than Catholic, because his Catholic dad wasn’t really into the faith. His grandparents, on the other hand, are still very Catholic and therefore very anti-abortion. I have long desired to have a civil and respectful theological conversation with them, to make my case about why I believe one can live according to the bible and support a woman’s right to choose, but my husband doesn’t think I should. The reason I want to is because I really want them to understand where I am coming from, and I also believe that it is possible to change people’s minds about a cause I see as a human right.”
She signed the letter, “Fighting for Choice in Florida.”
Columnist Sarah Steltzer offered up her sympathies. “[Y]our instincts to engage with these misguided folks are understandable,” she wrote. “To you, being pro-choice likely means acknowledging that women are human and have right to control their destiny. On some level, then, knowing your grandparent-in-laws’ doctrinaire views on this issue is probably making you feel less than equal in their eyes…So I feel your pain, and I get your desire to try your powers of persuasion.”
However, Steltzer wrote, “as much as I know that intrusive right-wing laws have no place in the Uteri of America, I also know that the over-70 set is not generally an easily-swayed demographic.”
She suggested that trying to change the views of one elderly Catholic couple was not only a likely exercise in futility, but would do very little to expand access to abortion. Instead, Steltzer suggested, the letter writer should let her anger over her husband’s grandparents’ views fuel further pro-abortion activism on her part.
“You have good energy for the most righteous of causes.,” Steltzer wrote.
“You stand for your sisters, but also for your own humanity and your ability to live life to the fullest, just as any man might, without your biology being destiny. Of course you’re pissed!” Steltzer continued in the Forward. “But it may be wiser to take that energy and use it to escort at a besieged clinic. Or give a donation to an abortion fund (they are so needed) or local Planned Parenthood.”
The advice columnist added that, if the writer wanted “a little perverse satisfaction,” she should make the donation “in your grandparent-in-laws' names.”