'Jane Roe' heads 'No More Roe' By UWE SIEMON-NETTO UPI Religion Correspondent Tuesday, January 23, 2001 NEW YORK – No More Roe is the name of a Catholic pro-life ministry trying to dissuade pregnant women from having an abortion. And guess who is heading this Dallas-based group? None other than Norma McCorvey, 53, otherwise known as Jane Roe. It was under this legal guise that she won the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision legalizing abortion exactly 28 years ago. Her adversary was Henry Wade, then district attorney of Dallas. The cigar-chomping Wade previously had attained international fame as the colorful prosecutor in Jack Ruby's murder trial. Ruby was the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy's assassin. Ironically, Norma McCorvey never had an abortion herself. Once a self-described "lesbian activist," she nevertheless carried three pregnancies to term, including the one that was the object of Roe v. Wade. It had been, she once said, the "result of a fleeting affair." In the end, Norma McCorvey gave her children up for adoption. And this is one alternative to abortion that "No More Roe" is promoting. "We also direct callers from around the country to pro-life counselors near their home towns," Connie Gonzalez, one McCorvey's three volunteers, told United Press International. Louisiana-born McCorvey now says "I think we all have the same dream: We'd like so see Roe v. Wade overturned." To get to this point, McCorvey had traveled a tortuous journey. She spent much of her childhood in reform schools. "I ran away from home when I was ten, and spent several decades supporting myself with odd jobs – a carnival barker, a waitress, a bartender, cleaning apartments, construction work," she wrote in an article for her own Web site. In the end, she wound up working for a Dallas abortion clinic where callers critical of the clinic's business showered her with unprintable insults, Texas Monthly magazine reported in 1995. "Would you like to see how we murder babies?" she would say. "Why don't you bring your embryos along? We'll kill them, too." Perhaps her first doubts about her role in opening the floodgates to the termination of up to 1.5 million unborn babies per year in the United States came when she passed an empty playground. "There were all those swings swinging by themselves in the wind, and there wasn't a child in sight. And I said to myself, 'Oh, my God, these playgrounds are empty because all the children have been aborted." Then something curious happened. The Rev. Philip "Flip" Benham, leader of Operation Rescue, moved into an office next door to the abortion clinic where McCorvey worked. Until then, McCorvey had called this brash cleric "Flip Venom," and he had accused her of "being responsible for the deaths of 35 million children," McCorvey wrote. Slowly, the two office workers who were supposed to be enemies became friends. But it was Emily, the seven-year old daughter of Operation Rescue volunteer Ronda Mackey, whose love really triggered McCorvey's conversion. Ronda Mackey's car carried a bumper sticker with a vivid red heart on the side. It read, "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart." Mackey confessed to Norma McCorvey that she almost had Emily aborted. Emily visited McCorvey frequently in her office in the abortion clinic. "Emily's blatant affection, frequent hugs, and direct pursuit disarmed me," she recalled. "On one occasion, I invited Emily into my office....During one phone call, I lost my temper and said to a caller, 'I'll just as soon see you in hell as I'll see you in here.'" At that point, Emily interjected, "You don't have to go to hell, Miss Norma. You can pray right now and Jesus will forgive you." In her Web article, McCorvey recalls that "the little evangelist" prayed every morning, "'Dear God, please don't let any babies be killed and make it so that abortion will end. And help Miss Norma to come to Jesus.' "Emily kept asking me if I would come with her to church. Finally I said yes." Less than a year after Pastor Benham had moved his office next to Norma McCorvey, he baptized her in a swimming pool. Later she joined the Catholic Church. Now, McCorvey, whose alias "Roe" has become a synonym for what euphemistically is called "choice," calls herself "one hundred percent pro-life. No exceptions. No compromise."

Respond to this article

Home · News · PLC Publications · The Presbyterian Layman Online Reviews · Archives · History of the Lay Committee · Feedback · Links