Who is “Roe” in Roe v. Wade? Her real name is Norma McCorvey, and her “uniquely American” story shows the ways class, religion and money shape abortion politics in the U.S.
Roe v. WadeGreg Gibson/AFP via Getty ImagesThis April 26, 1989, file photo shows Norma McCorvey, left, known as"Jane Roe" in the 1973 landmarkGreg Gibson/AFP via Getty ImagesSince the, countless political candidates are invoking that 1973 Supreme Court case — but it can be easy to skim past that name without thinking about who Roe even was. Roe refers to Jane Roe, the pseudonym in this case for the woman who originally sought the abortion: Norma McCorvey.
She often re-imagined herself as not a sinner, but a victim. And she often was telling about these sort of horrible things she suffered, which she didn't suffer. She begs her mother to take the child and later says her mother kidnapped the child — so it's, again, another lie — and places that child for adoption.
And then in 1995, she's working at an abortion clinic in Texas, and as is the way often of people who oppose abortion, they set up shop right next to an abortion clinic, setting up what they call a crisis pregnancy center. The man there was named Flip Benham. He was an evangelical minister who was actually the head then of [anti-abortion-rights organization] Operation Rescue.
And it's not just the politicization of abortion, but it's also, again, [McCorvey's] being whisked off literally to Hollywood by Gloria Allred, and she's learning to monetize her plaintiffship in a way that it's hard to imagine would take place just about anywhere else. This evangelical minister is baptizing her in a pool while the cameras roll — he blow-dries his hair and dyes his teeth white, and then she's on ABC News and all that — it's very American.
JP: The best answer I can give is that you have a large group of girls and women in Texas who invariably want to be able to have abortions. That has to do with various things, including class, as I mentioned earlier, and poverty and access to health care. And then you also have, at the same time, a very robust pro-life community. And so these two things are really in conflict.
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