There is a very fortunate 47 year old woman living somewhere today in the U.S. She is fortunate because she is alive, although her mother wanted her dead before she was born and had taken extreme measures to kill her.
Although her name and exact location are unknown, we know she was born in Texas in 1969 to a woman named Norma McCorvey, although you would know her mother best from a well-known Supreme Court case - Roe vs. Wade. McCorvey’s attorneys filed that case in 1971 using the pseudonym of Jane Roe, plaintiff vs. Henry Wade, the District Attorney of Dallas County from 1951 to 1987. Wade was the D.A. who enforced a Texas law that prohibited abortion (except in cases of rape or incest or to save a woman’s life).
“Roe” wanted an abortion to end the life of her unborn child which she claimed at the time was the result of a rape. She has since admitted that this was a lie.
Wade’s actions to enforce the abortion law culminated in the case going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, a process that took three years. In the meantime, McCorvey’s daughter was born and was adopted by a loving family. It is unknown to this day whether that child ever knew of her involvement in one of the most famous court cases in history. The adoptive family and McCorvey’s daughter have lived in anonymity since the adoption took place.
In October 1972 the case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and on January 22, 1973, the Court, in a 7-2 decision, affirmed the legality of a woman’s right to have an abortion under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
In his vitriolic dissent, Justice Byron White lambasted the Court's decision as arbitrary at best, and "an exercise of raw judicial power." Finding Justice Blackmun's framework contradictory, White wrote: "If the state had an interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus" -- which, he believed, the state did -- "that interest existed, and was equally strong, throughout the pregnancy." White -- and also, separately, William Rehnquist -- criticized the Court for extending constitutional protections to a right not found in the Constitution, and for overturning statutes he felt were no more restrictive than many in place at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, one of the main amendments used by the majority to locate the right to privacy. "The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries," wrote White. "Regardless of whether I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court's judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States."
As I am writing this on Tuesday morning, a news alert just popped up on my television screen that the House of Representatives just made the Hyde Amendment permanent as of today. I immediately went to the C-Span channel showing live coverage of the debate, and discovered that the alert was somewhat premature - that no vote had been taken yet but that the House was debating the passage of a procedural rule which would allow a vote on the two bills making the Hyde Amendment permanent, one being House Bill 7 and the other being Senate 184.
The actual vote is was scheduled for later on in the day. The measure passed the U.S. House in the late afternoon. It was presumed that the measure would pass since this is one of President Trump’s campaign promises and with his party now in control of the Congress, these two bills are expected to pass easily.
The Hyde Amendment, also known as the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act, would prohibit the use of any federal funds to pay for abortion or for health benefit plans that include abortion coverage. The amendment has always functioned as a budget rider attached to individual federal appropriations bills, and as such it has to be renewed by Congress every year. If these two pieces of legislation pass, the Hyde Amendment will be enshrined into permanent law.
McCorvey became the “poster child” for the pro-choice movement and worked for women’s centers in Texas and California in the 80s and early 90s. However, in 1995, Operation Rescue, a Christian group focused on making abortion illegal, moved its offices next door to the Dallas abortion clinic where McCorvey worked.
She began to bond with the pro-life group and in August of 1995 she was baptized. She is now an strong pro-life activist and in 1998 she converted to Catholicism and also announced she was no longer living the lesbian lifestyle which she had been doing since her pregnancy and the court case.
Fr. Frank Pavone interviewed her and wrote that at the time she was wearing a cross which was made out of a pro-choice bracelet, telling him it was a symbol of the changes made in her life and her views on the sanctity of human life.
In 2008 she made a pro-life TV commercial in which she said she was a “born again Christian” and faithful Catholic. In 2013, she spoke on another TV program wherein she said that although she herself had never had an abortion, but had three live births, including the girl she had while her case was pending before the Supreme Court, she was well aware that her involvement in the Roe v. Wade case had resulted in the deaths of 50 million babies from 1973 until 2013. She went on to say that “I will take this burden to my grave” and that she would commit the rest of her life to trying to get the Roe case reversed, and she continues to work toward that goal.
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