Admission about Payoffs to Roe Plaintiff Exposes More Lies Fueling the Anti-Abortion Political Machine

So now the truth comes out: anti-abortion activists paid Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision in 1973, to support their efforts later in her life. Their willingness to cheat and lie to ban abortion has been exposed for all to see. Check out our press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 19, 2020

Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller says new revelations that activists paid Norma McCorvey, plaintiff in the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, to support the anti-abortion movement later in her life further expose the lies behind that movement.

“Even anti-abortion leaders now admit that their tactics have been outrageously deceitful and unethical,” Miller said. “They will let nothing, especially not the truth, get in the way of their shameful efforts to control women’s decisions about their own reproductive health care. This is not the least bit surprising. Legislators have been using lies to pass anti-abortion laws for years now. Now their deceit is further exposed for all to see.”

In the Roe v. Wade case, McCorvey and her attorneys had successfully argued that the Texas anti-abortion law was unconstitutional. The Los Angeles Times reports that McCorvey acknowledged the later payments from anti-abortion activists in an interview with documentary makers before she died in 2017. “I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say,” McCovey told the makers of “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX, according to the newspaper.

The newspaper reported that anti-abortion leader Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister and former leader of anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, confirmed the payoffs: “What we did with Norma was highly unethical. The jig is up.”

Axios has excerpts from the Los Angeles Times piece.

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The Texas Freedom Network is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization building an informed and effective movement for equality and social justice.