In Deathbed Confession, ‘Jane Roe’ Reveals She Was Paid To Join Anti-Abortion Movement
Norma McCorvey--who is the "Jane Roe" in Roe v. Wade--made news when later in her life she became an outspoken voice in the anti-abortion movement. But in a new documentary, McCorvey admits she was paid to switch sides. “I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say,” she says on camera. “I did it well too. I am a good actress. Of course, I’m not acting now.”
Reuters:
Plaintiff In Roe V. Wade U.S. Abortion Case Says She Was Paid To Switch Sides
Norma McCorvey, the woman known as “Jane Roe” in the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion, said she was lying when she switched to support the anti-abortion movement, saying she had been paid to do so. (Serjeant, 5/19)
The Daily Beast:
Jane Roe Confesses Anti-Abortion Conversion ‘All An Act’ Paid For By The Christian Right
McCorvey, who died in 2017, became Jane Roe when, as a young homeless woman, she was unable to get a legal or safe abortion in the state of Texas. Her willingness to lend her experience to the legal case for abortion led to the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1973, which legalized abortions in all 50 states (though red states do all they can to get around this; recently, several have even used the COVID-19 pandemic to make abortions functionally impossible to procure). But conservatives had a field day in the mid '90s when the assertive, media-savvy pro-choice advocate and activist McCorvey became an anti-abortion born-again ex-gay Christian with the help of leaders of the evangelical Christian right, Reverend Flip Benham (of the infamous Operation Rescue) and Reverend Rob Schenck. A conservative film, Roe v. Wade, starring Jon Voight and Stacey Dash, will dramatize McCorvey’s “conversion.” (Da Costa, 5/19)
The Washington Post:
AKA Jane Roe: Norma McCorvey, Roe V. Wade Plaintiff, Got Paid To Be Antiabortion Activist, FX Documentary Reveals
In a documentary about her life, “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX, she made the deathbed confession in 2017 that her later-life fight against abortion rights was all an act that she was paid handsomely for by antiabortion activists. And it all goes back to the self-esteem and self-preservation of an abused girl running from the adults who failed to protect her. That heist by 10-year-old Norma Leah Nelson — born in Pointe Coupee Parish, La., and uprooted to Texas when she was 9 — ended when a housekeeper at the Oklahoma City motel where she holed up with a friend opened the door and found the two girls kissing, according to her memoir. (Dvorak, 5/19)
CBS News:
Jane Roe Of 'Roe V. Wade' Said She Was Paid By Anti-Abortion Rights Groups To Support Their Movement
McCorvey, the face of the abortion-rights movement at the time, came out against abortion in 1995 after purportedly finding religion at the hands of an evangelical minister. She went on to publicly participate in anti-abortion rights protests for the next two decades, and even published a memoir in 1998 explaining her decision to change sides. "I'm on what I call the right side of the movement now, because I'm fighting for life, instead of death," she once told an interviewer, according to "CBS Sunday Morning." When asked if she thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned, she replied, "Yes, I hope so." (McNamara, 5/20)
NBC News:
Anti-Abortion Rights Movement Paid 'Jane Roe' Thousands To Switch Sides, Documentary Reveals
Norma McCorvey was unmarried and unemployed when she became pregnant for the third time at age 22. It was 1969, and it was illegal to have an abortion in Texas, where she lived. McCorvey resorted to seeing an underground abortion doctor but walked out because of the "filth and cockroaches." Soon after, McCorvey became a national symbol for the abortion rights movement. (Lozano, 5/19)
Los Angeles Times:
Roe Vs. Wade Plaintiff Was Paid To Turn On Abortion: FX Doc
“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,” she says in “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX. “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”In what she describes as a “deathbed confession,” a visibly ailing McCorvey restates her support for reproductive rights in colorful terms: “If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.” (Blake, 5/19)
