Roe v. Wade Was Bigger Than Jane Roe
The news broke this week that Jane Roe, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, was paid by the anti-abortion right to publicly switch sides later in life. But while the news is shocking, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that no single person was responsible for the partial victory of Roe — it takes collective action to win social change.
Norma McCorvey, left, who was Jane Roe in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, with her attorney, Gloria Allred, outside the Supreme Court in April 1989.Lorie Shaull / Wikimedia
Norma McCorvey, the Texas plaintiff whose abortion case made it to the Supreme Court as Roe v. Wade in 1973, very publicly turned against abortion in 1995, speaking and writing against it prominently for twenty years. She died in 2017. Now, in AKA Jane Roe, a documentary filmed during the last year of her life, McCorvey says she only campaigned against abortion because she was paid by right-to-lifers, and that she supports abortion rights.
“I was the big fish,” she told director Nick Sweeney of her recruitment by an anti-abortion pastor. “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money, and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say.” The filmmakers were able to find evidence of $456,911 in payments.
If you’ve spent some time in the movement, you’ve seen this happen. An effective but cash-strapped grassroots leader abruptly stops speaking out and soon buys a house. A politician starts out championing labor rights and ends up championing corporate rights.
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