Decades before the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, John Turturro’s grandmother died as a result of an illegal abortion. “The right to choose affects us all,' the actor says:
“We have all suffered from women not being in charge of their own bodies — the pregnant women, first and foremost, but also their extended families,” he says. “The right to choose affects us all. A woman must have the right to plan her life as she sees fit. Abortion is a terribly difficult decision for anyone, but it is a personal one and needs to be protected.
While delving into his own backstory, he learned the truth about his grandmother from his mother. He trawled through public records, but there was nothing on her death certificate that reflected the real story. In 1927, the Italian immigrant was pregnant with her seventh child, one that she could not afford to feed. Her sister convinced her to try something risky to end the pregnancy.“She made her a special drink, a combination of certain powerful herbs that would ‘take care of it,’” he recalls.
The impact of his grandmother’s death on the family, including his 5-year-old mother, was sudden and harsh. “My mother lost her mother, her home, her family, her sense of safety and security, and most of her childhood,” he says. “On June 2nd, 1927, my mother was admitted to St. Joseph’s Female Orphan Asylum. Her younger brother went to the boys’ section of St. Joseph’s Asylum. Her older sister went to live at St. Germain’s Home, Peekskill. Her two older brothers were sent to St. John’s Home.
Ultimately, the Emmy-winning actor believes that art offers the best platform for changing hearts and minds. “I’ve done films with certain directors where you kind of knew [they] were actually touching something that people may be uncomfortable with, whether it’s race, misogyny, class,” says Turturro: “I’m not an actor who goes and talks about all the political things because I feel like I’m just a regular citizen like everybody else.
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