American newsmaker, also known by the pseudonym “Jane Roe”, she was the plaintiff in the landmark American legal case Roe v. Wade in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that individual state laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.
Later in her life, McCorvey became a Protestant Christian, and thereafter a Roman Catholic, and took part in the anti-abortion movement. McCorvey stated then that her involvement in Roe was “the biggest mistake of [her] life.” During an interview shortly before her death, in what McCorvey referred to as her “deathbed confession”, she said she had been paid to speak against abortion, and added that she continued to have abortion-rights beliefs.
McCorvey was raised at her family’s residence in Lettsworth in Pointe Coupee Parish. Later in her childhood, the family moved to Houston, Texas. McCorvey’s father, Olin Nelson, a TV repairman, left the family when she was 13 years old, and her parents subsequently divorced. She and her older brother were raised by their mother, Mary (née Gautreaux), a violent alcoholic.
In her teens, while working at a restaurant, Norma met Woody McCorvey (born 1940), and she married him at the age of 16 in 1963. She later left him after he allegedly assaulted her. She moved in with her mother and gave birth to her first child, Melissa, in 1965. After Melissa’s birth, McCorvey developed a severe drinking and drug problem. Soon after, she began identifying as a lesbian.
One day, McCorvey’s mother told her to sign what were presented as insurance papers, and she did so without reading them. However, the papers she had signed were adoption papers, giving her mother custody of Melissa, and McCorvey was then kicked out of the house. Her mother disputed that version of the events, and said that McCorvey had agreed to the adoption. The following year, McCorvey again became pregnant and gave birth to a baby, Jennifer, who was placed for adoption.
In 1968, at the age of 21, McCorvey became pregnant a third time and returned to Dallas. According to McCorvey, friends advised her that she should assert falsely that she had been raped by a group of black men and that she could thereby obtain a legal abortion under Texas’s law, which prohibited most abortion; sources differ over whether Texas law had such a rape exception. Due to a lack of police evidence or documentation, the scheme was not successful, and McCorvey later said it was a fabrication. She attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but the recommended clinic had been closed down by authorities. Her doctor, Richard Lane, suggested that she consult Henry McCluskey, an adoption lawyer in Dallas. McCorvey stated that she was only interested in an abortion, but agreed to meet with McCluskey.
Eventually, McCorvey was referred to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who were looking for pregnant women who were seeking abortions. The case, Roe v. Wade (Henry Wade was the district attorney), took three years of trials to reach the Supreme Court of the United States, and McCorvey never attended a single trial. During the course of the lawsuit, McCorvey gave birth and placed the baby up for adoption. McCorvey told the press that she was “Jane Roe” soon after the decision was reached, stating that she had sought an abortion because she was unemployable and greatly depressed. In 1983, McCorvey told the press that she had been raped; in 1987, she said the rape claim was untrue.
In 1994, McCorvey published her autobiography, I Am Roe. At a book signing, McCorvey was befriended by Flip Benham, an evangelical minister and the national director of the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue. She converted to Christianity and was baptized on 8 August 1995 by Benham in a Dallas, Texas, backyard swimming pool – an event that was filmed for national television. Two days later, she announced that she had quit her job at an abortion clinic and had become an advocate of Operation Rescue’s campaign to make abortion illegal. She voiced remorse for her part in the Supreme Court decision and said she had been a pawn for abortion activists. McCorvey’s second book, Won by Love, described her religious conversion and was published in 1998.
In 2004, McCorvey sought to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, saying that there was now evidence that the procedure harms women, but the case was ultimately dismissed in 2005.
Soon after giving birth a third time, as Roe v. Wade made its way through the courts, McCorvey met and began a long-term relationship with Connie Gonzalez. They lived together in Dallas for 35 years. After converting to Christianity, McCorvey continued to live with Gonzalez, though she described their relationship as platonic. Later in life, McCorvey stated that she was no longer a lesbian, although she later said that her religious conversion and renouncement of her sexuality were financially motivated. McCorvey moved out of the house she shared with Gonzalez in 2006, shortly after Gonzalez suffered a stroke.
Norma McCorvey died of heart failure in Katy, Texas, on 18 February 2017 at the age of 69.
Link to Wikipedia biography