On May 22, AKA Jane Roe premiered on FX. The documentary on Norma McCorvey, the woman who became the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade, was filmed in 2016 near the end of her life and has already stirred massive controversy. Multiple news outlets have trumpeted the highlight of the film trailers- a clip of Norma in a nursing home telling interviewers that her famous change in position on reproductive rights from pro-abortion to pro-life – as a mortal blow for the pro-life movement. But before accepting the video clips that the documentary shows as proof of corruption, it’s important to take a step back and consider the facts of Norma McCorvey’s life alongside the circumstances of this documentary.
First of all, it seems likely that the documentary producer Nick Sweeney made AKA Jane Roe with an anti-life political agenda. Sweeney notably neglected to include the testimony of those individuals closest to Norma throughout her life- such as Fr. Frank Pavone, Alveda King, and David Benham- who were most privy to the details of her pro-life work and Christian conversion. These were the people who witnessed Norma’s baptism, marched beside her at rallies, and worked with her as spiritual mentors to process the trauma of her involvement in Roe v. Wade. To leave them out seems suspicious for a documentary purporting to “reveal” the truth about Norma’s story.
As for Norma’s life story, we cannot possibly know all her inner thoughts and feelings. But what we do know for certain does not seem to line up with the documentary’s portrayal of Norma as a greedy mercenary of the political right. Following the Roe v. Wade case in which she unwittingly became the poster-girl for abortion rights, Norma quit her job at an abortion clinic after repeatedly attempting to talk patients out of going through with abortion. She was baptized in the Catholic Church in 1995 and wrote a book about her conversion experience, Won By Love. There is no evidence that Norma was ever offered money to convert, and numerous witnesses have attested to her sincerity. Abbey Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life advocate, said Norma called her days before her death, wanting to talk to someone who might understand a fraction of the guilt she felt for her “big number”- the number of deaths she felt responsibility for because of her role in Roe v. Wade. It is hard to reconcile such records of remorse and earnest activism with a “deathbed confession” that twenty years were all an act; it is much easier to see how the pro-choice industry, having used this woman once in her troubled youth, could use her again in her frail final years.
Ultimately, however, the question of whether or not Norma McCorvey really changed her views at the end of her life is not, as news outlets have rushed to assert, a matter of life or death to the pro-life cause. We know that media can always be manipulated, and single interviews don’t necessarily tell a whole story. It is difficult to tell how much of AKA Jane Roe’s major “hook” may have been formulated to garner attention. Certainly, political opponents have jumped at an opportunity to denounce the pro-life movement: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it in a tweet “…like many right-wing operations…a scam the entire time.” But this kind of attack just shows what abortion advocates cannot seem to understand; pro-life is so, so much more than a political program. As human beings we are all fallible, and Norma, though an inspirational individual, was no exception. We don’t rely on any figurehead to justify our cause- for that, we have Jesus Christ. Abortion is still evil, and it has killed 65 million babies since the Roe v Wade decision. No demonization, or even a genuine defection of a pro-life leader, could ever change these facts.
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