Norma McCorvey thought her friends and co-workers were kidding when they said Operation
Rescue was moving into offices next to where she was marketing director for a Dallas,
Texas, abortion clinic. But
they weren’t.
‘‘I couldn’t really
believe my eyes and ears,’’ McCorvey recalled of watching Operation Rescue move
in during March 1995. ‘‘How they got the lease was way beyond me.’’
McCorvey had reason for concern.
She was ‘‘Jane Roe’’ of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case that struck
down all state laws banning abortion in 1973. Pro-life supporters say some 35 million
abortions have taken place since the Roe decision in 1973, and Operation Rescue stands at
the forefront of the anti-abortion fight.
Over a generation, McCorvey, under
the pseudonym of Roe, had become the poster child for abortion – the reluctant
champion of abortion rights.
To McCorvey, Operation Rescue had
a reputation for standing in driveways at clinics, harassing patients and harassing her.
‘‘I didn’t want to
admit at the time that these people were human beings, as I was,’’ McCorvey told
a gathering of about 100 people Monday evening at Rowan Memorial Park for a
‘‘Memorial Service for the Unborn.’’
McCorvey put the word out to
pro-abortion forces in Dallas to fight Operation Rescue. Meanwhile, the Operation Rescue
leaders – and their children – started making an impression on McCorvey. A
7-year-old daughter of one of the Operation Rescue parents kept asking McCorvey if she
would attend church with the girl’s family.
McCorvey came to learn that Emily,
the 7-year-old, was almost aborted herself. Her mother’s family wanted their daughter
to have an abortion because she was not married.
‘‘She’s the one who
led me to Christ,’’ McCorvey said of Emily. ‘‘We had to look at
ourselves, and we had to look at the truth.’’
On July 22, 1995, when Emily asked
again that McCorvey attend church with her family, McCorvey agreed. That night, at
Hillcrest Church, McCorvey accepted Christ as her savior. She broke down and cried during
her first visit to church in 27 years, and she quit her abortion clinic the next day.
‘‘That night, Jane Roe
died in order for Norma McCorvey to live,’’ McCorvey said.
Since that day of conversion,
McCorvey has started the Roe No More ministry, speaking against abortion across the
country. She said she spends 90 percent of her time away from Dallas.
The ministry also serves as a
speaker’s bureau, holds protests at abortion clinics about twice a month and plans
some post abortion-healing workshops in the future.
She has a new book out titled,
‘‘Won By Love,’’ a book that’s in direct contrast to an earlier
book that McCorvey said should be read with the lights on.
‘‘I’m so glad that
I was given another chance,’’ said McCorvey, 51.
The Summit Class of North Hills
Christian School conducted Monday’s memorial service at Rowan Memorial Park. Behind
the podium and tent set up for the musical entertainment, the class had placed a stone
bench four years ago to memorialize aborted fetuses. It’s also meant has a place for
mothers to grieve.
On the bench Monday, students
placed a spray of pink and blue flowers, representing the number of babies aborted during
a 30-minute period in the United States (three per minute, teacher Doris Plummer said).
The bench has the date 1973
engraved on it, signifying the Roe v. Wade decision.
‘‘We hope the day will
come when we can put a closing date on that bench and Roe vs. Wade will be
overturned,’’ Plummer said.
Students in the Summit Class
wanted to invite McCorvey after seeing her story in a movie in class.
‘‘It was a story that
impressed us when we heard it together,’’ student Elizabeth Pallas said.
The students made the phone calls
and arranged for flights, a room and donations. A $10 donation admitted one person to a
reception in the school gym following the memorial service.
Extra funds collected will be
given to the Rowan Pregnancy Counseling Center.
‘‘She has been very
gracious and has a lot of teen-ager inside her still,’’ Plummer said after
meeting McCorvey. ‘‘... Isn’t it amazing what God does.’’
The ‘‘Wade’’
in Roe v. Wade is the name of the district attorney in Dallas in 1973, Henry Wade. Jane
Roe said about 25 women have contacted her, claiming to be the ‘‘Roe’’
baby.
Norma McCorvey never had an
abortion. She was pregnant with her third child – the second out of wedlock –
and described herself as a stoned-out hipped living in a park – ‘‘the
second tree to the left.’’ She gave the child up for adoption.
She often stole groceries for food
and worked for an underground newspaper. When she looked into a possible abortion, somehow
attorneys looking to legalize the practice in Texas attached her name to their efforts.
McCorvey said she didn’t
realize there was a hidden agenda, or what impact the case may have on the country as a
whole. She remembers it being explained to her as a way to help victims of rape and
incest, she said.
‘‘All I knew was,
‘Yeah, that sounds great to me,’’ McCorvey said of the time.
‘‘When someone offers to feed you, you become a chameleon.’’
McCorvey later held many jobs,
including bartender, waitress and construction worker. But anti-abortion folks always knew
who she was and where she lived.
Today, McCorvey believes God
planned it all this way. |
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