Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff “Jane Roe” in the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion virtually on demand, died Feb. 18 at an assisted-living facility in Katy, Texas. She was 69.
The cause of death was heart failure. Her funeral will be private, family members said.
McCorvey became a pro-life supporter in 1995 after spending years as a proponent of legal abortion. She also became a born-again Christian. A couple of years later, she said she felt called to join the Catholic Church of her youth. Her mother was Catholic and her father was a Jehovah’s Witness. After instruction in the faith, she was accepted into the church in 1998.
In a statement issued by Priests for Life for her family, they thanked the “many people across America and around the world who, in these days, are expressing their condolences, their prayers, and their gratitude for the example Mom gave them in standing up for life and truth. Though she was the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, she worked hard for the day when that decision would be reversed.”
McCorvey’s family said Priests for Life would be organizing memorial Masses and other services around the country “to give more people an opportunity to remember Mom’s life and work.”
Norma married Woody McCorvey when she was 16. When she was pregnant with the couple’s first child, she moved in with her mother, alleging Woody had assaulted her. She gave birth to daughter Melissa in 1965. She struggled with alcoholism and came out as a lesbian. The following year, McCorvey became pregnant with her second child, who was put up for adoption.
In 1969, when she was 21 and became pregnant a third time, she tried to obtain an illegal abortion but had no luck as state authorities had shut down such operations. She was referred to lawyers seeking a plaintiff for an abortion suit against the state of Texas. The case took three years to reach the Supreme Court. McCorvey gave her baby up for adoption.
“I did sign the affidavit that brought the holocaust of abortion into this nation,” McCorvey said later. “(But) I found out about Roe v. Wade like everyone else did – in the paper.”
In 1994, after more than two decades of guilt-induced drug binges and various jobs at abortion clinics, McCorvey said she began to change her mind about the abortion industry, especially when Operation Rescue moved next door to her workplace, an abortion clinic in Texas.
In 1995, while attending a church service, McCorvey answered an “altar call” to come forward and publicly accept Christ. In August of that year, she was baptized by the Rev. Flip Benham, then director of Operation Rescue National.
From there, increased contact with Catholic pro-life leaders both inside and outside the Dallas Diocese led to her decision to become a Catholic. She documented much of her conversion story in her 1997 autobiography, “Won by Love.”