Norma McCorvey

Norma McCorvey

Norma Leah Nelson McCorvey was the plaintiff in the landmark U.S. legal case Roe v Wade in 1973. She became a Roman Catholic and pretended to abandon her pro-abortion rights stance. She even took part in the anti-abortion movement. In an interview shortly before her death, she said she had been paid for her anti- abortion activism, and it had been ‘all an act’

About Norma McCorvey in brief

Summary Norma McCorveyNorma Leah Nelson McCorvey was the plaintiff in the landmark U.S. legal case Roe v. Wade in 1973. She became a Roman Catholic and pretended to abandon her pro-abortion rights stance. She even took part in the anti-abortion movement. In an interview shortly before her death, she said she had been paid for her anti- abortion activism, and it had been ‘all an act’ She was born in Simmesport, Louisiana, and grew up in Houston, Texas. Her father, Olin Nelson, a TV repairman, left the family when she was 13 years old, and her mother, Mary, was a violent alcoholic. She was sent to a Catholic boarding school prior to her minor troubles with law enforcement that started at the age of ten, when she robbed the cash register at a gas station and ran away to Oklahoma City with a friend. The case, Roe v Wade, took three years of trials to reach the Supreme Court of the United States, and never attended a single trial. During the course of the trial, McCOrvey revealed herself to the press as being ‘Jane Roe’, stating that she was soon looking for the press and that she soon found herself being referred to as ‘Jane’ After the decision, she gave birth to a baby girl and placed the baby up for adoption.

She later left her husband, Woody, after he allegedly assaulted her. She moved in with her mother and gaveBirth to her first child, Melissa, in 1965. After Melissa’s birth, she began identifying as a lesbian. She went on a weekend trip to visit two friends and left her baby with her mom. When she returned, her mother replaced Melissa with a baby doll and reported her to the police as having abandoned her baby, and called the police to take her out of the house. In 1969, at the Age of 21, McC orvey became pregnant a third time and returned to Dallas. She said this was the happiest time of her childhood, and every time she was sent home, would purposely do something bad to be sent back. After being released, she was declared a ward of the state and sent to state-run institutions. In 1973, she tried to obtain an illegal abortion, but the recommended clinic had been closed down.