My parents are liberal, progressive folks. But my father in particular did not come from a very enlightened family, when I was growing up his family regularly made racist, sexist and homophobic comments. It made my parents nuts, however, it also gave them many early opportunities to teach us why thinking like that is wrong and hurtful. I think the other way to think about this is that young children being exposed to "bad" things like racist or sexist comments isn't all bad. If anything I learned to be disgusted by racism and sexism at a younger age than most kids because of that exposure-- it's not necessarily a bad thing. I was very close to my dad's family growing up, but I also grew up countering a lot of what they said with questions about their views, questions that have strong shaped my point of view.

Fast forward 20 years-- some of those family members are still racist, but they are a lot less proud of their views and they know that their beliefs are no longer socially acceptable. Some of them are no longer racist, including my 75-year old grandmother. People can change. (But they're no longer homophobic since I came out 10 years ago.)

I think the LW needs to think about where many committed progressives/liberals come from. Some come from kind, progressive families. Some come from messed-up bigoted families. Many have a mix of both in their backgrounds. Some of the most die-hard progressives I know are so because of the bigoted environments they were raised in-- they have firsthand knowledge of the ugliness of bigotry. They're not afraid to challenge those perspectives when they encounter them either.

In a nutshell, I don't think it's fair to judge a person based on the family they come from. A lot of very good people come from not-so-good families. If I were the LW I would talk a lot with my fiance about how much he plans to see them, how I might respectfully express my personal disapproval of such views, and how we might handle such comments when we have little ones around. (Is he willing to limit contact, tell them he doesn't want them talking that way around his kids, etc.) Talk about it a lot, his reactions will help them figure out how to proceed, his family shouldn't be a dealbreaker in itself, but his attitude about his family could be.

Late-term abortion is a HUGE red herring. Women CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be able to blithely walk into a respectable doctor's office and demand a late term abortion and get one. First of all, they are DANGEROUS and medically risky. Doctors will not perform them without a seriously compelling medical reason. The women who have them don't want them, they have them because they need them. Can we please stop pretending that a woman who is 8 months pregnant wakes up one day and decides to abort? It's fiction.

The same can be said about most women who get abortions, it's not a "casual" decision. But most adults understand that sometimes in life we have to make tough decisions. Sometimes that means terminating a pregnancy so that you can keep your job or afford to feed the children you already have. Sometimes it means that your birth control failed and that you can't handle a pregnancy, emotionally, financially, etc. Sometimes it means you have an abusive partner and bringing a child into the situation would only make things more dangerous. Regardless of the reason, I wish people would try respecting women to make the right personal decisions for their own lives. If you're so concerned about abortion make sure that all women have all the resources they need-- education, contraception, etc.-- and help eliminate the *need* for abortion.

I could only support banning 3rd trimester abortions if I felt 100% guarenteed that nothing bad would ever happen to me. That I wouldn't find out at 7 or 8 months pregnant that there was something catastrophically wrong with me or the baby. You know, the *real* cases where women have had late-term abortions, the ones where they had their nursery already painted, the names chosen, but then their world collapses around them because of a rare medical tragedy. What is so "pro-life" about forcing a woman who wants to be a mother to carry her dying/terminally sick baby to term? Or what if she needs to get radiation or chemo to save herself?

But the case at hand was *not* an abortion. This woman is either a) mentally ill and/or has emotional problems, or b) should have had an abortion months and months ago. We don't now why she didn't or if she didn't have access earlier on. But it wasn't an abortion and she could have easily killed herself as well.

No one here is defending what she did or thinks it was an abortion or thinks that late term abortions without medical reasons are the same as abortions at 3 weeks-- however, the desperation could be a chilling sign of things to come as restrictions on abortion access get tougher and tougher. That is all that can be taken from this tragic story.

As someone who is planning on starting the adoption process next year this wonderful, honest piece reminds me why my partner and I have never considered closed adoption. Even if that means that having a child placed with us might be harder-- we're Jewish lesbians-- but we know in our hearts that we don't want our future child(ren) to be cut off from their biological family.

Thank you, Dawn and Salon, for such an excellent, heartfelt essay.