Norma McCorvey died Saturday in Katy, Texas, at the age of 69, following a period of failing health. McCorvey (shown) was more commonly known as “Jane Roe” in the historic 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, the case that overturned all state laws banning abortion. However, she spent much of her life working to undo the damage of Roe v. Wade.
At 21 years of age and pregnant with her third child — the first two having been given up for adoption — McCorvey sought an abortion only to find it illegal in her home state of Texas. Through a series of circumstances she was introduced to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington who used a desperate and ill-informed young McCorvey to further an agenda to legalize abortion at the federal level. Although she agreed to be the plaintiff in the case, McCorvey, who had only a ninth grade education, admitted her lack of understanding of the situation. In an...
Craig Mussulman | 7/6/2009
