Norma McCorvey, a pro-life “actress” who faked evangelical and Catholic conversions to be exploited or to exploit financially pro-life evangelicals and Catholics?

By Julio Severo

In a shocking 19 May 2020 report titled “The woman behind ‘Roe vs. Wade’ didn’t change her mind on abortion. She was paid,” the Los Angeles Times said,

When Norma McCorvey, the anonymous plaintiff in the landmark Roe vs. Wade case, came out against abortion in 1995, it stunned the world and represented a huge symbolic victory for abortion opponents: “Jane Roe” had gone to the other side. For the remainder of her life, McCorvey worked to overturn the law that bore her name.

But it was all a lie, McCorvey says in a documentary filmed in the months before her death in 2017, claiming she only did it because she was paid by antiabortion groups including Operation Rescue.

“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,” she says in “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX. “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”

In what she describes as a “deathbed confession,” a visibly ailing McCorvey restates her support for reproductive rights in colorful terms: “If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.”

Abortion was made legal in the United States in 1973, allowing the killing of unborn babies from conception to the last day of pregnancy. Yearly, about 1,000,000 unborn babies are killed in abortion facilities in the U.S.

The role of McCorvey was crucial to legalize abortion in the United States. So it was no surprise that her conversion in 1995 was celebrated by the pro-life movement.

The Los Angeles Times report also said,

The documentary includes scenes of McCorvey on election night 2016 — a few months before she died of heart failure at age 69 — expressing her support for Hillary Clinton. “I wish I knew how many abortions Donald Trump was responsible for,” McCorvey muses. “I’m sure he’s lost count, if he can count that high.”

A DailyMail report titled “‘Jane Roe’ of landmark US Supreme Court case made ‘deathbed confession’ that she was PAID by evangelicals to become anti-abortion campaigner and admitted her activism was ‘all an act’” said,

The Rev. Phillip 'Flip' Benham, one of the two evangelical leaders who helped orchestrate McCorvey's religious conversion in the mid-1990s, denied paying her.

But the creators of the documentary reportedly uncovered documents showing that she had received more than $450,000 in ‘benevolent gifts’ from the anti-abortion movement.

Pro-life Christians are extremely generous in their efforts to fight abortion, and such generosity has been interpreted by the left-wing media as “exploitation” of her. The left-wing media refuses to consider if she exploited generous pro-life Christians.

The DailyMail report added that in the interview, “In addressing her activism for the religious right, McCorvey boasts: ‘I’m a good actress.’”

Probably her performance as an actress happened in her own “Christian” conversion. With Benham’s spiritual aid, McCorvey was baptized and became a pro-life evangelical Christian. But a short time later, she underwent another religious conversion: She became a Roman Catholic.

To please right-wingers, actress “McCorvey also took part in demonstrations where he burned the LGBT flag and the Quran,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

So she spent a short time as an evangelical actress and many more years as a Catholic actress. I do not understand how Christian leaders did not suspect her fast conversions.

Even though many in the pro-life movement are silent, some are speaking up to defend McCorvey. In a report titled “Former Jane Roe Norma McCorvey Was ‘100% Pro-Life,’ Prayed to End Abortion Just Before She Died,” LifeNews said,

Pro-life advocates who personally knew Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade, believe that her conversion to the pro-life movement and Christianity was sincere.

Sincere conversion to Christianity? Even though the pro-life evangelical and Catholic fight is important, both religions are much different. Evangelicals focus on Jesus and the Bible as the most important factors for the Christian life, while Catholics focus on Jesus, Mary, saints, Bible and many extra-biblical traditions as important factors for the Christian life.

So the “Christian” conversion of McCorvey was contradictory and problematic.

Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister and former leader of Operation Rescue, was also interviewed in the McCorvey documentary. Today, Schenck is a left-wing evangelical against Trump. The Los Angeles Times said:

Despite her visible role in the fight against abortion, McCorvey says she was a mercenary, not a true believer. And Schenck, who has also distanced himself from the antiabortion movement, at least partially corroborates the allegations, saying that she was paid out of concern “that she would go back to the other side,” he says in the film. “There were times I wondered: Is she playing us? And what I didn’t have the guts to say was, because I know damn well we were playing her.”

The left-wing media, which is exploiting the deathbed confession of a pro-life actress and portraying the pro-life movement as having exploited her, did not want to address the issue of if a pro-life actress can exploit generous pro-life Christians to get money. Actors and actresses can use a pro-life, conservative, right-wing, and Christian language for years just to get money.

There is a trail of problematic issues in the “Christian” conversion of McCorvey. In my view, the most insightful view came from pro-life leader and attorney Rebecca Kiessling, who said in her Facebook page:

A new documentary has Norma McCorvey, "Jane Roe" from Roe v Wade filmed in a "deathbed confession" in 2017 saying she was always in support of abortion rights and was only paid to say she was pro-life. Norma had serious mental health issues and lots of people in the pro-life movement knew it. I met her in person when we both spoke at an event held on my birthday and I was 9 months pregnant and had my birthmother with me. She kept wanting to cancel the event, but did end up speaking. She was very rough around the edges, joked about her extended years of serious substance abuse. I thought it was off that she had no interest in meeting her daughter who she gave birth to and placed for adoption as her case was working its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Norma McCorvey and I were Facebook friends for the time she was on Facebook, but the things she posted were extremely bizarre. One time it was a really strange post involving a gun. Everyone was worried about her. She'd flip on things she said or posted regularly and started banning people as they'd inquire or call her out.

She was canceled by #ProLife speakers bureaus as a speaker because of her erratic behavior, including no-showing for events, canceling last-minute, saying she can't speak. She'd blame her behavior on the toll of being responsible for over a million dead babies each year. She signed a sworn affidavit seeking to overturn her case.

In this new documentary where she has her "deathbed confession" that she's always been for abortion rights, who knows what those people were doing to exploit her? Given her mental state, it's not a shock to me that this video has come out.

People with serious mental health issues need a real conversion to Christ. A real conversion to Christ solves such issues, because when Jesus enters your life, nothing is left untouched and unhealed.

McCorvey’s case shows that if as a Christian you fight abortion, which is a worthy fight, but neglect the supreme responsibility Jesus gave you (“go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,” Matthew 28:19-20 NIV), you are just doing a social, political or ideological work, which saves no eternal souls, and losing the opportunity to preach the whole Gospel to save souls.

The $450,000 in benevolent gifts given to McCorvey would have been much better employed if used to support missionaries who are preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, expelling demons, just as Jesus did, and making disciples and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded.

Portuguese version of this article: Norma McCorvey, uma “atriz” pró-vida que falsificou conversões evangélicas e católicas para ser explorada ou para explorar financeiramente evangélicos e católicos pró-vida?

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Trump Became First U.S. President to Attend March for Life

Abortion, the Inquisition and Revisionism in the Encyclopedia Britannica