‘ABORT’ ICON DIES
The ‘Roe’ who sued Wade was 69
She was the poster child for abortion rights — until she became the poster child for the prolife movement.
She spent 35 years in a loving lesbian relationship, worked in an abortion clinic, and then in a dizzying about face, was born again, renouncing both her sexual orientation and the landmark Supreme Court case that will forever bear her pseudonym.
Norma Lea McCorvey — the “Jane Roe” behind Roe v Wade — died of a heart ailment Saturday at an assisted-living facility in Katy, Texas.
McCorvey, 69, lived her life buffeted by the winds of poverty, addiction, and tempestuously contrary cultural forces.
All because at age 22, she’d become pregnant for the third time and thought to ask some local Texas lawyers how she might get a safe and legal abortion.
McCorvey had already given up her first two babies — one for adoption, the other to her alcoholic mother.
She was unwed, poor, drinking heavily and working in a gay bar in Dallas when she sought a safe abortion in late 1969, biographer Joshua Prager wrote in a 2013 Vanity Fair profile.
“She could not afford to travel to any of the six states where abortion was legal: Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Washington,” Prager wrote.
She was referred to Linda Coffee, a young lawyer who was looking for plaintiffs so she could sue Texas over its abortion ban.
“Wade” was Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade.
By the time the case dragged out in appeals and the Supreme Court announced its 7-2 decision in 1973, her baby was 2½ years old; Mc- Corvey had given the child up for adoption and learned of the ruling in the newspapers, The Washington Post reported.
“It’s great to know that other women will not have to go through what I did,” McCorvey told the Baptist Press, a Nashvillebased news service, ditching her alias for the first time.
The Supreme Court ruling established that the constitutional right to privacy includes the choice to terminate a pregnancy.
At age 25, McCorvey moved in with her lover, Connie Gonzales. The couple lived in Dallas and cleaned houses for a living.
Meanwhile, McCorvey realized she could monetize her celebrity.
In the late ’80s, she started doing interviews, including one in 1987, in which she acknowledged she’d made up her original claim that her “Roe” pregnancy was the result of rape — a lie that infuriated pro-life activists.
She hired a lawyer, and an ad exec, and started two foundations for abortion rights. She marched at pro-choice protests, was portrayed by Holly Hunter in a TV movie, wrote a book, “I Am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade and Freedom of Choice,” and teamed with feminist firebrand attorney Gloria Allred for appearances.
She even started working for a Dallas abortion clinic — until 1995, when the Christian group Operation Rescue moved in next door.
Soon, McCorvey was visiting, asking the group to pray for her, and within months was baptized in the group director’s backyard pool.
“The poster child has jumped off the poster,” the head of Texans for Life cheered, Prager wrote.
In 1998, McCorvey, supported by the national organization Priests for Life, converted to Roman Catholicism.