As of: 01/22/2023 4:04 p.m
Jane Roe made US history with her name. It is part of the legendary “Roe vs Wade” verdict that liberalized abortion rights 50 years ago. But opponents of abortion also tried to win her over.
It was a verdict like a thunderbolt: On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that the abortion ban in Texas was unconstitutional.
The verdict overturned anti-abortion laws nationwide. Women were granted the right to decide whether to have an abortion themselves – up to the 24th week of pregnancy.
The plaintiff was Norma McCorvey, better known as “Jane Roe” – a fictional name to protect her identity. Henry Wade was the prosecutor representing the state of Texas. Under her name, the lawsuit made legal history in the United States as “Roe versus Wade”.
Don’t give birth to another child
Norma McCorvey grew up in difficult circumstances, she had already put two children up for adoption when she became pregnant again. She is determined to terminate her third pregnancy and therefore contacts abortion rights activists.
The process drags on. At some point it is too late for an abortion. McCorvey learned from the newspaper that she had won the lawsuit before the Supreme Court.
Only much later, in the late 1980s, did she become an icon of the “pro-choice” movement. She takes part in rallies and gives interviews. “Women should have the right to self-determination,” she said at the time.
Norma McCorvey gave birth to her child – and yet her name stood for liberal abortion rights in the USA for almost 50 years.
Image: picture alliance / Everett Colle
Suddenly a change of heart?
Then in 1995 the surprising turnaround: Norma McCorvey changed sides. A Christian organization called “Operation Rescue” persuaded her to speak out publicly against abortion.
“I became a Christian, got baptized and changed my mind about abortion,” McCorvey said in front of the television cameras.
An apparent triumph
For the radical opponents of abortion, she is a main prize, the “big fish”, as she later tells, shortly before her death, in the documentary “AKA Jane Roe”. In it, she reveals that she only switched sides for the money. Allegedly, the abortion opponents paid her $450,000.
It was mutual, she says. She took the money and the others put her in front of the cameras and told her what to say.
And the child?
Norma McCorvey passed away in 2017. The daughter who wanted an abortion, Shelley Lynn Thornton, is now 51 years old. Until 2021, the so-called “Roe Baby” lived in anonymity.
It was only when the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 landmark ruling on the right to abortion in June last year that she went public. However, Thornton deliberately kept her opinion on abortion to herself.