January 22, 1973
Lyndon Johnson dies and the Supreme Court rules in favor of abortion
Norma McCorvey, also known as Jane Roe, was the plaintiff in the landmark US Supreme Court decision, Roe vs Wade. McCorvey’s life was extraordinarily tragic.
Born in Louisiana, her family moved to Texas when McCorvey was still young. When she was 13, her father left the family. Her parents eventually divorced and she and her brother were raised by their mother, Mary, a violent alcoholic.
Around the age of ten, she started having run ins with the law. At one point, she robbed a gas station cash register and ran away to Oklahoma with a friend. She was arrested and declared a ward of the state.
Between the ages of 11 and 15 she spent time at the State School for Girls in Gainesville, Texas. Every time she was sent home, she’d do something to get sent back. She claimed her time at the school was the happiest of her childhood.
After being released from the school, McCorvey lived with a cousin of her mother’s. McCorvey said he raped her every night for three weeks. The cousin claimed she was lying.
When she was 16, McCorvey married Henry McCorvey. She claimed he assaulted her and she left him, moving in with her mother. She gave birth to her first child in 1965.
After the birth of her baby, McCorvey developed a severe drinking and drug problem.
Around the same time, she started to identify as a lesbian.
At one point, McCorvey went away for the weekend with friends, leaving her baby in the care of her mother. When she returned from the trip, the baby was gone, replaced by a doll, and McCorvey’s mother reported her to the police for abandoning her child. Her mother then had the police remove McCorvey from the house.
After three months, McCorvey’s mother finally let her see the baby and move back into the house.
One day, her mother woke her up and told her to sign some insurance papers. McCorvey did so without reading them. They were adoption papers. McCorvey had been tricked by her own mother into signing her baby over to her mother.
Afterwards, McCorvey was again kicked out of the house.
The next year, McCorvey became pregnant again. She placed that baby for adoption.
In 1969, McCorvey became pregnant again. She was 21 years old. She returned to Dallas where friends advised her to claim that she’d been gang raped by some black men in order to obtain an abortion. The plan failed. McCorvey later admitted to the lie.
She tried to get an illegal abortion, but that plan also failed.
Her own doctor suggested she meet with an adoption lawyer. McCorvey said she was only interested in an abortion, though she met with the adoption lawyer anyway.
Soon, she was set up with the two lawyers who were looking for abortion seeking women. The two lawyers, Linda Coffey and Sarah Weddington, were looking to challenge abortion laws and needed plaintiffs.
Although, McCorvey ended up being the main plaintiff in the case, Roe vs Wade, that overturned abortion laws in the U.S., she never actually went to the trial and never had the abortion. Her third child was born and placed for adoption before her case ever reached the Supreme Court.
McCorvey converted to Christianity, getting baptized in a backyard pool, and became an outspoken critic of abortion.
In 1998, she converted the Catholicism.
As she was dying, a film crew interviewed her for a documentary called AKA Jane Roe. In the interview McCorvey admitted that she’d been paid by some members of the pro-life community to take an anti-abortion stance. She also claimed that she’d never changed her mind, that if a woman decided to have an abortion, it was not skin off her back.
What did McCovey really believed about abortion? It would be hard to say. As she admitted herself, she was the “big fish,” each side wanting to claim her as their own.
Fr. Frank Pavone, who received her into the Catholic Church and said her funeral mass, says that her conversion and pro-life stance were real. He knew her for 22 years and they’d had thousands of conversations. He says that his organization, Priests for Life, never paid her.
McCorvey was a truly troubled woman. She told big lies. She was raped. She wasn’t raped. She was pro-abortion. She was pro-life. She was a Christian. She wasn’t a Christian. It makes you wonder if McCorvey even knew herself or what she believed. I wonder what actually happened in her life and what was the story she told for the cameras. Did she become someone else for the camera? For the story? For the drama?
Over 62 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since that 1973 decision. None of those 62 million plus were McCorvey’s children. Her three babies were born and may still be living.