With the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973 has been prominent in the news. I decided to look up the history and background of this case. Roe was an alias for a lady named Norma McCorvey. She had a very troubled youth and ended up getting pregnant three times with each each baby being subsequently adopted. While she was pregnant with the third baby, she sought an abortion in Texas by lying that she was raped. Her lie was discovered and she eventually gave birth and put up the baby for adoption. While pregnant with this third child she was referred to two attorneys who were looking for pregnant women seeking abortions. Norma ended up being the plaintiff in this case.

McCorvey did an about-face on her original stance regarding abortion and became a staunch advocate against abortion. She quit her job at an abortion clinic and became a pro-life advocate. In 2005 McCorvey petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 decision but was unsuccessful.Why did McCorvey change her stance? In her second book, “Won by Love,” she was looking at a tiny 10-week-old embryo in a fetal development poster.The following is a direct quote: “I kept seeing the picture of that tiny 10-week-old embryo, and I said to myself, that’s a baby! It’s as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth — that’s a baby! I felt crushed under the truth of this realization. I had to face up to the awful reality. Abortion wasn’t about ‘products of conception’ it was about children being killed in their mother’s wombs.

“All those years I was wrong.”

Dennis Weczorek

Lake Stevens