A forthcoming documentary is expected to show that Norma McCorvey, the woman at the center of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, was paid by pro-life groups to say things she did not believe in opposition to abortion.
A priest who says he was close to her for decades told CNA that while McCorvey was a complicated person, he believes her pro-life convictions were sincere.
“This is my deathbed confession,” Norma McCorvey says in a trailer for AKA Jane Roe, an FX documentary premiering Friday. Interviews with McCorvey were filmed before her 2017 death.
When she died, McCorvey had been in the spotlight, and at the center of the nation’s divide over abortion, for decades. Born in 1947 in eastern Louisiana, McCorvey moved to Houston as a child, and endured an unstable and abusive family life. She spent several years living in state-run institutions, and has reported that she was sexually abused as a child.
She married at 16, had a daughter, and then left her husband. By 1969, she had had two children, both of whom had been placed for adoption, and McCorvey was pregnant for a third time. She attempted to procure an abortion, which was illegal in Texas at that time. She filed a lawsuit, which became Roe vs. Wade, and placed her third child for adoption.
McCorvey had by then developed substance abuse problems. She began a lesbian relationship that continued for decades. She claimed at one point that she had become pregnant through rape, but recanted that claim in 1987.
McCorvey was for a time an advocate for pro-abortion causes and was employed by an abortion clinic, until, in 1995, she had a conversion to Protestant Christianity. She was baptized by a prominent Evangelical pro-life advocate, and began campaigning against abortion.
In 1998, McCorvey was confirmed and entered the Catholic Church. McCorvey continued to practice Catholicism throughout her life, and received the anointing of the sick before her death.
After her baptism, McCorvey was an outspoken opponent of abortion. She also spoke about struggles with substance abuse and mental health issues.
Trailers for “AKA Jane Roe” suggests that McCorvey’s pro-life activism was insincere, and motivated by money.
Read more at National Catholic Register
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