Give me a stack of Bibles so I can swear on them this simple fact: The conversion of Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of Roe v Wade, to a pro-life position and to faith in Christ, was no act.
The assertions gleefully made by abortion advocates that an upcoming documentary show she was lying are about as believable as someone who would presume to tell you that your sibling or best friend was just pretending to be who they were their whole life.
My colleague Janet Morana and I were privileged to be by Norma’s side for her journey for 22 years, from her baptism in 1995 to the day of her death in 2017 – a day on which we had our final conversation with her.
DR. ALVEDA KING: CLAIM THAT 'JANE ROE' WAS PAID TO JOIN PRO-LIFE CAUSE IS FALSE
I received her into the Catholic Church in 1998, as Janet sat next to her. We led her through an intense spiritual and psychological healing process from the wounds she incurred in the abortion industry, had thousands of conversations and spent countless hours both in public and in private, for business and pleasure.
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The sacrifices Norma made on this journey of healing are not things you can fake. Her life can’t be summarized in an article or in an interview – even with her. One had to see the whole pattern, all the ups and downs, to identify her center of gravity.
She was wounded and erratic, and yet knew she was a new creation in Christ; she was needful of help and yet fiercely independent, tender of heart and yet capable of fierce anger and rebellion.
I don’t know what the interview was that the documentary is touting, or what was said leading up to it. What I do know is that the conversion and commitment, the agony and the joy I witnessed firsthand for 22 years was not a fake. There is zero percent chance of that.
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In 2013, Norma traveled to New York to celebrate with me as I marked the 25th anniversary of my ordination. On what was one of countless similar occasions, Norma regaled a number of us until late in the night with stories from her life. She was a character, funny and flawed. She was a sinner, just like the rest of us.
On the day she died, her daughter Melissa – sensing the end was near – called Janet and me in Rome and we were able to talk to Norma before she passed. She urged us to continue fighting to overturn the unjust decision made in the name of Jane Roe, the persona she had long since outgrown. There was no play-acting in Norma’s final words to us.
Everyone will talk about this film for a few days but most won’t care about the truth. There have always been people who have tried to reshape Norma’s story, or get her to reshape it. She resented that and would resent it today.
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If anything, what the other side has to face up to is that Norma rejected abortion before she became pro-life. The day before the pro-abortion press conference in which she was first revealed as the “Roe” of Roe v Wade, she told Gloria Allred that she thought abortion was wrong. And while working in abortion clinics, she talked women out of their abortions. If there was any ambiguity, it was about her commitment to pro-choice, not to pro-life.
Our movement should take this wave of negative publicity as a chance to get to know Norma better, and to urge America to get to know better Roe v Wade, a policy of abortion-on-demand throughout pregnancy – a policy that not only Norma but America has rejected.
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