Jane Roe's Deathbed Confession:Anti-Abortion Conversion 'All an Act' Paid for by the Christian Right

[catbyte]

The new FX documentary “AKA Jane Roe,” out May 22, contains a shocking revelation: Roe (of “Roe v. Wade” fame) played the part of an anti-abortion crusader in exchange for money.

Cassie da Costa

Entertainment Writer
Updated May. 19, 2020 3:32PM ET

In its final 20 minutes, the documentary film AKA Jane Roe delivers quite the blow to conservatives who have weaponized the story of Jane Roe herself—real name, Norma McCorvey—to argue that people with uteruses should have to carry any and all pregnancies to term.

McCorvey, who died in 2017, became Jane Roe when, as a young homeless woman, she was unable to get a legal or safe abortion in the state of Texas. Her willingness to lend her experience to the legal case for abortion led to the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1973, which legalized abortions in all 50 states (though red states do all they can to get around this; recently, several have even used the COVID-19 pandemic to make abortions functionally impossible to procure). But conservatives had a field day in the mid '90s when the assertive, media-savvy pro-choice advocate and activist McCorvey became an anti-abortion born-again ex-gay Christian with the help of leaders of the evangelical Christian right, Reverend Flip Benham (of the infamous Operation Rescue) and Reverend Rob Schenck. A conservative film, Roe v. Wade, starring Jon Voight and Stacey Dash, will dramatize McCorvey’s “conversion.”

But those filmmakers, and the rest of the pro-life evangelical community, have another curveball coming. In the final third of director Nick Sweeney’s 79-minute documentary, featuring many end-of-life reflections from McCorvey—who grew up queer, poor, and was sexually abused by a family member her mother sent her to live with after leaving reform school—the former Jane Roe admits that her later turn to the anti-abortion camp as a born-again Christian was “all an act.”

“This is my deathbed confession,” she chuckles, sitting in a chair in her nursing home room, on oxygen. Sweeney asks McCorvey, “Did [the evangelicals] use you as a trophy?” “Of course,” she replies. “I was the Big Fish.” “Do you think you would say that you used them?” Sweeney responds. “Well,” says McCorvey, “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say.” She even gives an example of her scripted anti-abortion lines. “I’m a good actress,” she points out. “Of course, I’m not acting now.”

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/jane-roe-confesses-anti-abortion-conversion-all-an-act-paid-for-by-the-christian-right

[hlthe2b]

1. Deathbed confession. Did the harm done to other women impact her at all?

It doesn't seem like it. All just a "game" apparently.

[catbyte]

2. Money is a powerful motivator. Still doesn't excuse it, though. I just thought it was funny that

vile kooks Jon Voight and Stacey Dash are making a movie based on a lie. But what else is new when you're a MAGAt?

[Turbineguy]

3. Gee.....

Underhandedness by Christians. Who'da thunk it?

[Me.]

4. And There You Go

[Pantagruel]

5. McCorvey was in it for herself

She was amoral and like too many evangelicals, willing to sell their souls for cash. I'm sure she could rationalize any pain she might cause to women by "balancing" it against the 'rescued unborn" as flawed as that argument might be.
She was simply trying to survive in a world she believed treated her harshly. I believed all along she was getting paid by the Christian right, that's how they roll.

[Pantagruel]

6. from Huff Po

"The forthcoming documentary examines her sudden change of course after befriending two evangelical leaders, the Rev. Flip Benham and the Rev. Rob Schenck.

“I was the Big Fish,” McCorvey reportedly says in the film, referencing how valuable the anti-abortion movement viewed her conversion.

Schenck reportedly corroborated McCorvey’s account.

“I had never heard her say anything like this. … But I knew what we were doing. And there were times when I was sure she knew. And I wondered, ‘Is she playing us?’ What I didn’t have the guts to say was, ‘because I know damn well we’re playing her,’” he says upon hearing her confession, according to The Daily Beast.


While Benham denied paying McCorvey, the filmmakers behind “AKA Jane Roe” uncovered documents revealing she received more than $450,000 in gifts from his movement.

The revelation of McCorvey’s admission comes as abortion rights in the U.S. face an onslaught of state-level efforts to dismantle them. One of those, a Louisiana law that drastically limits who can provide abortions, is the subject of a case the Supreme Court heard in March. It’s the first major abortion case to come before the court under President Donald Trump, whose nominations have made the court more conservative. A decision is expected next month."