Identity of Roe v. Wade baby revealed

WASHINGTON • The child at the centre of the Roe v. Wade abortion case has revealed her identity after half a century.

Shelley Lynn Thornton, now 51, is a mother of three living in Arizona.

In 1970, Norma McCorvey, a 22-year-old waitress from Dallas, Texas, sued Henry Wade, the local district attorney, over the state's abortion law. McCorvey was referred to in the case by the pseudonym Jane Roe.

The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which delivered its ruling legalizing abortion nationally in 1973.

By that time, McCorvey had given birth to a child, now revealed to be Thornton, and put her up for adoption.

Thornton discloses her identity in a forthcoming book by Joshua Prager called The Family Roe: An American Story, an extract of which was published in The Atlantic magazine. She had been adopted by Ruth Schmidt and her partner, Billy Thornton.

Shelley Thornton described how she only learned of her connection to Roe v. Wade when she was tracked down as a teenager by the National Enquirer, when she was living near Seattle. After being told, she began “shaking all over and crying.” The tabloid did not publish her name.

She went on to have telephone conversations with her biological mother, McCorvey, but did not meet her. In 1994, they had an angry exchange after McCorvey suggested that she should be grateful. Thornton said: “I was like, `What?! I'm supposed to thank you for getting knocked up ... and then giving me away?' I told her I would never, ever thank her for not aborting me.” McCorvey died in 2017. Of her own views on abortion, Thornton said: “I guess I don't understand why it's a government concern.” She revealed her identity because she “hated” keeping it a secret. The announcement came after Texas passed a law banning abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity in the unborn baby, usually at about six weeks.

The Justice Department has sued Texas, arguing that the law was enacted “in open defiance of the Constitution.”

The Texas law relies on private citizens to enforce it by filing civil lawsuits against people who help a woman obtain an abortion after six weeks, whether that be a doctor who performs the procedure or a cabbie who drives a woman to a clinic.

The law allows people who sue to receive at least $10,000 and makes no exceptions for rape or incest, although there are narrowly defined exemptions for the mother's health. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott defended the law this week, saying that the state would “eliminate all rapists.”

“Texas passed a law that ensures that the life of every child with a heartbeat will be spared from the ravages of abortion,” Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said. “We are confident that the courts will uphold and protect that right to life.”