PERSPECTIVE ON ABORTION : When Only Clenched Teeth Will Do : Abortion is an issue that divides families almost as deeply as the Civil War. What happens when ‘they’ are your relations?

I’m related by marriage to right-wing fundamentalist Christians--my husband’s brother, wife and three darling daughters--who used our home as a stopping place to and from their vacation this summer.

Their family station wagon arrived sporting brand-new bumper stickers, one saying, “Only half of the patients that enter an abortion clinic come out alive” and, the other, “The most dangerous place to live in America is in a mother’s womb.” Fighting words in my book.

Yet they were here to share a roof and table with us, the feminists, the “baby killers.” I know what my brother-in-law’s opinion is and I know what his pastor and congregation call us. I’ve faced anti-choice folks at clinic defenses, but eating waffles with them is an entirely different demonstration of my humanity. I have a glimmer of the pain that members of families living on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon line must have had during the Civil War.

We’re not entirely without common ground. My brother-in-law and I are both interested in addictions and dysfunctional family systems. We respect each other enough to read books the other has recommended. We know the effects of emotionally excessive or unavailable parenting. I am grateful because of what I’ve learned about our families in these discussions.

I’ve held back my opinion, however, that my brother-in-law’s religious stance is a form of addiction. I believe that his fundamentalism is a way for him to focus on changing others rather than dealing with his own pain and problems. I consider myself a recovering control-monger, so I know one when I see one.

He and his congregation at home envision a day when we become a truly Christian country, a day when the government is Christian, a day when everyone believes the way they do. Their vision is frightening to me. They are deadly serious.

It hurts me deeply to be related to people I consider to be “them.” Just as “they” consider us “baby murderers” for being pro-choice activists, we consider them to be “Constitution killers” and “woman-and-gay killers.” I salve the hurt a bit by considering them sick, like practicing alcoholics. I’m righteous but can’t help it.

The first leg of their visit ended uneventfully. In the interim week, however, I decided to nonchalantly display on my desk my clinic defense alliance placard that says “keep abortion legal.” It’s large and I ordinarily keep it in the trunk of my car.

But on the way to my trunk, I decided against it, because of the children. My oldest niece, the one who wants to eat what I eat and wear what I wear, is just learning to read and she’s extremely curious about the written word. She’s constantly asking, “What does that say?” I’m sure she had already asked what those bumper stickers “said.”

I speculated that she had been told something like, “Satan made some un-Christian women murder their tiny babies.” I consider it a form of abuse to inculcate children with inflammatory religious or political views. I was damned if I was going to flaunt my constitutionally protected protest sign, back my relatives into a corner and finally force them to identify me to my sweet niece as one of “them.” Perhaps I’m naive, but I believe that family love and respect have kept my husband and me from being branded as part of Lucifer’s band.

I know my niece already has trouble sleeping for fear of devils. She has told me that the “Little Mermaid” of the movie is evil because she is supernatural. I want to be a part of her dreams, not her nightmares. So their second stop was as uneventful as the first.

As I hugged her goodby, my niece reached down to my wrist to finger my brass commemorative bracelet that urges repeal of the U.S. aid policy that effectively refuses funding to family-planning clinics in the developing world if they mention the word abortion . Of course, she asked, “What does this say, Aunt Ellen?” I deflected her question. At 5 1/2, she’s short but not stupid, and knew I was avoiding something.

I hope that when she’s a young woman I’ll be able to speak straightforwardly with her and that she’ll be independent enough to follow her own path. In the meantime, I pray that “we” win and “they” lose. For my nieces and women and children all over the world.