The Rebirth of Jane Roe

This week, Operation Rescue baptized yet another new member. Through this latest conversion, the sometimes violent pro-life organization whose mission is the "rescue" of unborn fetuses managed yet another publicity coup. This time it was not brought on by gunfire on an abortion clinic, but instead by the identity of the woman who joined their ranks.

While her face would not be recognizable to most American, she has affected the lives of countless people in this country as the plaintiff in one of the most famous court cases in American history. She is Norma McCorvey, better known as Jane Roe, the woman who became the symbol for abortion rights in the landmark case Roe v. Wade.

Certainly, her mythic place in American history would seem to make her an unlikely anti-abortion crusader. At the same time, she was never a poster child for the abortion movement. In fact, her participation in the case was not brought on by her commitment to social change, but more buy the fact that she happened to be in the right place at the right time.

A young Texas lawyer named Sarah Weddington was searching for a despondent woman to become a symbol of the drive for abortion rights when she met McCorvey, who was facing a second unwanted pregnancy. The case which became Roe v. Wade originated in 1970 when Weddington was able to convince McCorvey, then an unwed and impoverished woman who was unable to obtain a legal abortion, to file suit demanding the right to an abortion. Pushed by Weddington and her colleagues, McCorvey took the case directly to Federal courts, so that they could challenge the constitutionality of all states' abortion laws, not just Texas's.

McCorvey's lawyers ultimately proved to be more passionate about this decision than she. In the three years which ensued before the final Supreme Court decision, Weddington was able to create a case which led to the extension of the privacy rights of the 14th Amendment to include abortion rights. Ironically, the woman who became known as Jane Roe did not even end up taking advantage of these new rights by having an abortion. Instead, she gave her child up for adoption.

Still, being the namesake of such a landmark case carved out a good life for McCorvey. She was the object of much media attention, living off of royalties of her book I Am Roe. However, while being the house celebrity at a pro-choice group where she worked in Texas, she clearly harbored some ambivalence about abortion rights, ultimately befriending a man named Flip in the office next door, who just happened to be the leader of Operation Rescue.

Sarah Weddington was quick to tell the media this week that the recent actions of the woman who became known as Jane Roe are inconsequential, having become far removed from the ultimate significance of the case. She emphasizes the case was a class action decision, insuring the protection of abortion rights for a country of women clamoring for change in which McCorvey was simply a random representative. As a result, Weddington attests that whatever McCorvey decides in her personal, professional and political life does not reflect the views of most women who have benefited from the ruling, and should be ignored.

As much publicity as McCorvey has garnered from her seemingly radical change, she is in the process of compounding the image problems she has already created for herself. She seems enthusiastic about the Operation Rescue family into which she has been reborn, yet tries to satiate the disappointed pro-choice groups by saying that she is an antiabortion activist only in cases of women trying to abort after the first trimester. As McCorvey will learn, though, baptism into the ranks of Operation Rescue will not make first trimester abortion rights activists welcome her with open arms.

At the same time, the signs do not look good for her long and happy life within the anti-abortion movement. Already, she has not been accepted by many members of Operation Rescue for this condemnation of abortion only after the first trimester, and has won little support beyond Flip and his closest friends.

Consequently, in trying to appease both sides of the abortion debate, McCorvey has lost her legitimacy as a member of either. In fact, the only players who may gain from this controversy are pro-life citizens who do not support the violence of Operation Rescue but who think that women may regret a youthful or desperate desire to abort a child. McCorvey may be seen as an important example of this increased conservatism with age. Still, she is hardly the bastion of conservative family values, having lived most of her adult life as an open lesbian.

No matter how her political stances have evolved, though, McCorvey's contribution to the history of abortion rights America has already been made. No backyard baptism will change the decision of the Supreme Court. More importantly, even if McCorvey had been an Operation Rescue follower 20 years ago, Weddington and her colleagues would have found another Roe to represent their fight; no doubt, the same rights would have been won.

However, McCorvey's decision is certainly a symbolic loss to the campaign for women's rights. For the last 20 years, abortion rights groups have had to defend the famous decision against constant attacks. In fact, McCorvey's recent conservative turn mirrors some of the Court's chipping away at its original decision, including restricting second trimester abortion rights which it had upheld through Roe v. Wade in more recent cases.

While McCorvey was arguably never the voice of the revolution she began, the fact that she has defected from her cult status as revolutionary is a terrible blow to many advocates of women's rights. Even if McCorvey's change of mind won't overturn the decision of 1973, the country has lost one important liberal hero to the ranks of the ever-strengthening Right.