DALLAS, Texas — They were on the same side 30 years ago, fighting for abortion. But attorney Sarah Weddington and the woman whose anonymous name filled in the title of the Supreme Court case legalizing abortion have sharply contrasting views today.
Weddington, the pro-abortion lawyer who tried the Roe v. Wade case and became an icon of the pro-abortion movement, is worried that as the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision has passed, pro-life advocates are gaining political strength.
“It's a melancholy celebration,” Weddington says. “I am more concerned today about the future of Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose than ever before.”
Norma McCorvey — the “Jane Roe” of the case — has converted to Roman Catholicism and became a pro-life advocate since the landmark ruling.
“I have a great deal of hope that it will be overturned,” says McCorvey, sitting in her Dallas living room, which is papered with images of Jesus, pro-life posters, books and bumper stickers.
The two women who made history together no longer talk.
McCorvey said she is praying for the woman she once idolized. Weddington said McCorvey's change of heart has no bearing on the case. But during a recent interview, she expressed curiosity about her former client.
“What's Jane Roe saying these days?” she asked.
Three decades after the landmark case, the future of abortion is more uncertain than it has been in years.
The balance on the Supreme Court would tilt if President Bush could replace one pro-abortion justice with one who believes Roe was bad law. State laws have chipped away at abortion, and the Republican takeover of the Senate has raised hopes among those who oppose abortion for more federal judges who will uphold pro-life legislation.
Weddington isn't sure abortion advocates can turn back the tide.
“There was a sense of we had won; we could check that off and go onto other issues,” Weddington said. “It's a lot easier to get people excited and motivated and fully involved in trying to change something … than it is to keep things the way they have been for the last 30 years.”
Diana Philip, executive director of Jane's Due Process, an Austin-based group that encourages minors to violate Texas' parental notification law, said most of the teens who call the group's hot line don't know about Roe v. Wade.
“There is a population of women who don't understand that the rights could be taken away and don't feel a need to put their energy into defending that right,” she said.
Weddington says the older generation of abortion advocates faces the challenge of persuading these younger women. “Unless you understand what it was like before Roe V. Wade, it's hard to understand why we don't want to go back,” said Weddington, who had an abortion at age 21 in Mexico.
Weddington herself yearns to move on. After Roe, she became a state lawmaker, then a general counsel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an assistant to President Jimmy Carter, and an author. Now living in Austin, she is a cancer survivor involved in cancer research. She still gives speeches about abortion but wants to focus on writing about women in leadership roles.
McCorvey's focus, however, hasn't strayed from the pro-life fight since she shocked the pro-abortion movement in 1995 by renouncing her views in favor of abortion.
McCorvey had originally said she needed an abortion because she had been raped but later said she lied, and put her child up for adoption. In 1994, she published an autobiography that disclosed a past including dysfunctional parents, reform school, petty crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, an abusive husband, a second unwed pregnancy, attempted suicide and lesbianism.
She said images from abortion facilities where she used to work still haunt her. “Dead children in glass jars and freezer bags,” is how she recalled a Dallas abortion business.
She gives speeches about her experiences and heads her own small ministry called Roe No More, which tries to dissuade pregnant women from considering abortion. She said each anniversary of Roe v. Wade is a reminder of her involvement in a decision she detests.
“It's 30 years of legalized abortion. It's the 30th year of knowing that 4,000 children a day are going to be killed by abortion,” she says.
McCorvey applauds measures that have been taken to weaken legal abortion, including laws in many states requiring 24-hour waiting periods for abortions and laws requiring minors to notify or obtain the consent of a parent or guardian beforehand.
For more articles regarding this issue, visit the Associated Press.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
