John Turturro reveals that his grandmother died after a botched abortion
Turturro emphasized that restricted abortion access is something "that affects us all"

Like so many, John Turturro has a personal connection to the protections offered by Roe v. Wade—and strong feelings about the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn the ruling. Decades before the landmark 1973 decision, which guaranteed a federal right to abortion, Turturro revealed his grandmother Rosa died while trying to terminate a pregnancy.
“I lost my grandmother because she died during an illegal botched abortion,” Turturro told Rolling Stone. “So that informs me on the whole history of abortion. And I was very interested in that [subject] because the death certificate says ‘manic depressive psychosis — contributory: exhaustion.’ It doesn’t say ‘botched abortion.’”
Turturro said he learned the real story behind his grandmother’s death while exploring his Sicilian heritage for the PBS series Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates. Although Rosa’s public death certificate indicated very little about the end of her life, Turturro’s mother gave him the real story: In 1927, pregnant with a seventh child she knew she couldn’t afford, she tried to induce abortion using an herbal tonic her sister promised would “take care of it.”