JANE ROE, AKA NORMA MCCORVEY AND THE OTHER "A" WORD

Next year, on February 18th, it will be ten years since the passing of Norma McCorvey, also known as, Jane Roe. She was the "Roe" in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion in all 50 states. Some years ago I went to a pro-life gathering with the aim of meeting her, but when there, a few yards from her, so close she could have heard me, I decided not to. 

Somewhat late, Norma tottered out into the crowd, and was met with rapturous applause, beaming smiles and a lot of people turning a blind eye. They were ecstatic because ostensibly she'd joined the pro-life side. 

Norma was swaying from one foot to the other, slurring her words and looking like was about to pass out. Norma seemed very drunk. Her clothes unkempt. Had a drunkard from a nearby bar come into the crowd, with the same demeanor as Norma, I doubt they'd have gotten such a welcome. 

In this piece, I'll use the word "seemed" quite a bit because it is only my personal experience. She didn't know where she was, and had to ask the people around her the name of the city. At random, she'd say in a Texan drawl to her handlers, "Are you m'm'friend?" 

I felt her eyes on me, and they were like vacuums, like suctions, and I felt like I'd be "sucked in", and made to do her bidding. Something held me back from introducing myself, like my Guardian Angel's blue striped wing was on my shoulder.

I didn't voice my reasons for not making myself known to her and for being quiet as a mouse for the rest of the speeches. Had I mentioned my bad gut feeling for Norma, the company I kept at the time would have strong-armed me into becoming her "friend", maybe even paying her bill, and had I refused I'd have been charged with being "uncharitable".  

Ah, the ends don't justify the means, and it is wrong to do an uncharity to someone in manipulating them to be "charitable" and become acquainted with someone who may take advantage. I am easily manipulated and have often kept my true reasons to myself in case someone uses them to make me do something ill-advised or destructive. 

I am not going to share where, when and with whom I went to hear Norma say a few stilted words because I don't want to lay the blame on the people who had brought her into our midst for her condition and what seemed her inebriation that day. 

Personally I think what seemed her alcohol addiction had more of a governing role in her life than has been acknowledged. Three years after her death saw the release of Nick Sweeney's AKA Jane Roe, which dumbfounded a lot of people, and created a mystery as to whether she had ever been pro-life. I wasn't in the least bit surprised, for many years I'd suspected she had been acting. I never felt she was speaking from the heart, but more from a script. 

The documentary presented a dying Norma McCorvey, who puckishly went off the reservation, and who came across as someone who had always been furtively pro-choice and was coarse, "If a young woman wants to have an abortion, fine. That's no skin off my ass." Then she instructed Sweeney, "that's why they call it "choice"."

After the release of AKA Jane Roe, my fellow pro-lifers then rushed to say that Norma McCorvey's "conversion" from self-styled pro-choice activist to pro-life apologist had always been genuine, and that Sweeney was twisting the narrative to make it look like Norma had been paid to be a pro-life puppet. But it's too convenient to overlook that Norma elected to have Sweeney make a documentary about her.

I've read widely about Norma, and I got the impression she felt belittled by the pro-abortion establishment, that they were only interested in her for certain times of the year, especially January 22. She appeared galled by their fickleness. 

My understanding is that she felt drawn to the pro-life side because they would give her adulation and alcohol all year round. Even if she was not an alcoholic, perhaps a heavy drinker, the pro-life side was willing to guarantee year-round wining and dining. 

Her Catholic supporters have come in for censure, that they were too eager to fill her wine glass. That said, rare though it is for agreement, both those in favor and against access to abortion, agree that she had a substance abuse problem for over 50 years. It was even caught on camera. In AKA Jane Roe, she is having a beauty treatment and given a mimosa that she downs in seconds. 

It is a cynical assessment, but I wonder if she used both sides to fund and facilitate an alcoholic lifestyle, and found that the pro-life side was more easily played. They were also inclined to give her that which she perhaps she craved most: attention.