More on Roe v. Wade
Norma McCorvey was a teenager who lived in Texas. She dropped out of the ninth grade and was married at the young age of sixteen. At the time, abortion was illegal in Texas.
McCorvey began the fight for abortion to become legal in the United States when she wanted to have an abortion but was unable because it was illegal where she lived in Texas. She became the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court Case of Roe v. Wade which ultimately decided that a woman's right to privacy extended to her right to terminate a pregnancy. The right, however, must be balanced against the state's interests of regulating abortions based on the pendulum between protection prenatal life and protecting a woman's health.
By the time the decision came down, McCorvey was twenty-one years old and on her third pregnancy. She decided to have the child and give it up for adoption. So, although McCorvey was a woman who fought hard for abortion to be legal, she herself never actually had an abortion. Besides her third child she had two other daughters, one that had been raised by the father and one that was raised by McCorvey's mother.
In the 1980s, Norma McCorvey (still known to the public as Jane Roe) revealed her true identity and wrote a book called I am Roe: My Life, Roe v. Wade, and Freedom of Choice.
In the book, McCorvey tells us of her difficult life as a high-school dropout. She suffered from physical and emotional abuse as a child and was raped as a teenager. Her marriage at sixteen ended later because her husband beat her. After the abortion law was passed she worked in many abortion clinics and was an active pro-choice speaker.
McCorvey hated the pro-life protesters that came down to the clinic every day. They did, afterall, long to destroy everything her life had revolved around since 1970. However, while she was working at one of the abortion clinics she began to talk with one of the protesters. He was an evangelist named Phillip Benham. They began to develop a relationship and she later became a Christian and concerted to Catholicism.
Today, Norma McCorvey is a very active pro-life speaker who is working to over-turn the legislation and the pro-choice movement she headed almost forty years ago. She tells of her fight for the pro-life movement on her website, Roe No More Ministries. http://www.leaderu.com/norma/
McCorvey began the fight for abortion to become legal in the United States when she wanted to have an abortion but was unable because it was illegal where she lived in Texas. She became the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court Case of Roe v. Wade which ultimately decided that a woman's right to privacy extended to her right to terminate a pregnancy. The right, however, must be balanced against the state's interests of regulating abortions based on the pendulum between protection prenatal life and protecting a woman's health.
By the time the decision came down, McCorvey was twenty-one years old and on her third pregnancy. She decided to have the child and give it up for adoption. So, although McCorvey was a woman who fought hard for abortion to be legal, she herself never actually had an abortion. Besides her third child she had two other daughters, one that had been raised by the father and one that was raised by McCorvey's mother.
In the 1980s, Norma McCorvey (still known to the public as Jane Roe) revealed her true identity and wrote a book called I am Roe: My Life, Roe v. Wade, and Freedom of Choice.
In the book, McCorvey tells us of her difficult life as a high-school dropout. She suffered from physical and emotional abuse as a child and was raped as a teenager. Her marriage at sixteen ended later because her husband beat her. After the abortion law was passed she worked in many abortion clinics and was an active pro-choice speaker.
McCorvey hated the pro-life protesters that came down to the clinic every day. They did, afterall, long to destroy everything her life had revolved around since 1970. However, while she was working at one of the abortion clinics she began to talk with one of the protesters. He was an evangelist named Phillip Benham. They began to develop a relationship and she later became a Christian and concerted to Catholicism.
Today, Norma McCorvey is a very active pro-life speaker who is working to over-turn the legislation and the pro-choice movement she headed almost forty years ago. She tells of her fight for the pro-life movement on her website, Roe No More Ministries. http://www.leaderu.com/norma/
Pro-life advocates everywhere rejoiced in McCorvey's conversion while pro-choice supporters morned the loss of their "poster-child". Regardless of McCorvey's conversion, Roe v. Wade still stands and has prompted national debate on the legality of the decision and to what extent an abortion should be legal and who should decide the legality. The issue of abortion encompasses health, human rights, morality and religion making it an issue that has shaped national politics in our society.