Almost all Americans know who Jane Roe is, the appellant in the notorious case of Roe v. Wade. However, most citizens could not tell you who Norma McCorvey is.
Norma McCorvey, who underwent the alias of Jane Roe to protect her identity in the Roe v. Wade case, was known as a plaintiff in one of the most critical Supreme Court cases this country has ever experienced. Little do most know; her life was much more complex than that 1973 Supreme Court case.
McCorvey was born on September 22, 1947, in Simmesport, Louisiana to Olin Nelson, who left the family when she was 13 years old, and Mary Nelson, a violent drunk. She grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness, but never really connected with the religion. At the age of 10, she found herself in trouble with the law when she robbed a gas station and ran away to Oklahoma City with a friend. McCorvey’s engagement with illicit activities did not end there.
McCorvey became a ward of the state and was sent to a Catholic school, and then the State School for Girls in Gainesville, Texas from ages 11 to 15. McCorvey would actively try to be sent back to the state school because she lived with her mother’s cousin, who would rape her every night.
At age 16, McCorvey married Woody McCorvey and quickly became pregnant with her first child Melissa. She left Woody and developed a drug and alcohol addiction, then began to identify as a lesbian shortly after the birth of Melissa. She gave her mother custody of Melissa and became pregnant with Jennifer, who was put up for adoption.
She got pregnant for a third time and moved to Dallas, Texas. She wanted an abortion, but it was illegal in the state of Texas without a specific cause. Therefore, McCorvey claimed that she was raped by a group of black men, but there was a lack of evidence. She tried to get an illegal abortion, but the clinic was shut down. That is when she was found by Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, two lawyers who were trying to access abortions for pregnant women. That was when the three-year trial of Roe v. Wade took place. McCorvey did not attend a single trial and gave birth to the child who was put up for an adoption and became Shelley Lynn Thornton.
In 1994, she released an autobiography called I am Roe. She was baptized as an Evangelical Protestant and then later converted to Catholicism. She worked at an abortion clinic but quit to become an activist for an anti-abortion movement called Operation Rescue. She actually moved for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2004, but the case was dismissed in 2005.
McCorvey died on February 18, 2017, at the age of 69 due to heart failure. On her deathbed, she claimed that she was a pawn for the anti-abortion movement and was paid for her alliance by stating, “I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say. If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.”
Norma McCorvey: 1947-2017
Norma McCorvey lived a life of hardship and pain, we should all know her name and share her story.
Rest in Peace, Norma.