Norma McCorvey appearing in a new documentary, AKA Jane Roe, said her conversion to the pro-life movement was an act.
A documentary by liberal activist Nick Sweeney and produced by Vice Media, AKA Jane Roe, claims that Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe in the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, made a deathbed confession that her conversion to pro-life was staged and paid for by the pro-life movement.
McCorvey, who died in 2017 and cannot rebut the statement, gave Sweeney an interview when she was dying and frail. The Los Angeles Times and the Daily Beast both reported on the documentary before its scheduled release on FX and Hulu. They both reported McCorvey said “This is my deathbed confession,” and when asked by Sweeney if the pro-life movement and Religious Right “use(d) you as a trophy?” McCorvey answered, “of course, I was the big fish.”
Asked again if she was used, she said “it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they took me out in front of cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say.” She added, “I’m a good actress … of course, I’m not acting now.”
Sweeney said he found that McCorvey received at least $456,911 from pro-life groups and individuals. Neither the time frame nor the reasons for these payments, which could have included speaking fees over a quarter-century, were disclosed in media reports on AKA Jane Roe.
Business Insider reported that Sweeney did not set out to make a documentary about McCorvey from a pro-life or pro-abortion position, but to show the “complicated” life of the divorced mother of three – she gave each up for adoption – who grew up in poverty, worked in abortion facilities after winning her Supreme Court case, and later became a leading pro-life advocate.
Her comments appear to contradict what McCorvey said for the final 25 years of her life.
Operation Rescue’s Cheryl Sullenger, a friend of McCorvey’s for years, called the news reports and documentary “fake news.” Sullenger said, “I knew Norma personally and saw her during unguarded moments. Norma was frank, and if she was in a mood, she could say things that were controversial. But never did she ever show any hint of being anything other than 100 per cent pro-life as long as I knew her.”
Lauren Muzyka, executive director of Sidewalk Advocates for Life, said that she saw McCorvey do sidewalk counselling, without a hint of being coerced or gaining personally from the experience. “Just before Norma died, I prayed with her on the sidewalk in front of the Southwestern abortion facility in Dallas to close out the 40 Days for Life-Dallas campaign that fall,” said Muzyka. “There was never any question about the fact that she was pro-life. In fact, friends from our pro-life community in Dallas spent significant time with her just before she died.”
McCorvey was approached by pro-abortion lawyers in 1969 to be a test case against the restrictive abortion laws in Texas. By the time the Supreme Court decided the case in 1973, McCorvey had had the child.
In the late 1990s, she testified before the Supreme Court that Roe v. Wadeis based on a lie: “My name is Norma McCorvey. I’m sorry to admit that I’m the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade,” she said. “The affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court didn’t happen the way I said it did, pure and simple. I lied! Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey needed an extreme case to make their client look pitiable. Rape seemed to be the ticket. What made rape even worse? A gang rape! It all started out as a little lie, but my little lie grew and became more horrible with each telling.”
In 2005, McCorvey converted to Christianity and three years later became a Catholic. Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, said he knew McCorvey and was “her spiritual guide for 22 years, received her into the Catholic Church, kept regular contact, spoke with her the day she died, and conducted the funeral,” and he has no doubt about the sincerity of her conversion to pro-life. “The things that I saw in 22 years with her – the thousands and thousands of conversations we had – that was real … her conversion was very, very sincere,” he told the Catholic News Agency.
Jim Hughes, president emeritus of Campaign Life Coalition, told The Interim, he met McCorvey on a number of occasions and “found her to be sincere about her conscientious opposition to abortion and overwhelmed by the role she played in legalizing abortion in America.” He recalled that at a meeting of pro-lifers in Washington one time, she was giving her testimonial about being used by the pro-abortion movement and began crying. Hughes stood up to hug her and asked for someone to lead a prayer so the group could pray for her. “I cannot imagine for a minute that it was a charade.”
Hughes said McCorvey regretted being used by the pro-abortion movement, “and it looks like they are still using her.”
