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The Child in the Center of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that established a woman’s right to abortion, came to the fore after decades of secrecy.
Shelley Lynn Thornton, 51, was revealed to be the youngest daughter born to Norma McCorvey, whose trial under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” led to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, according to journalist Joshua Prager’s book, “The Family Roe: An American Story.”
“Secrets and lies are, like, the two worst things in the world,” Thorton told Prager in an excerpt from the book published in The Atlantic on Thursday.
Her biological mother was 22, single, unemployed, and pregnant with her third daughter in 1969 when she attempted an abortion in Texas, where the procedure was illegal except to save a woman’s life.
McCorvey took legal action against Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, although by the time she won, she had already given birth and offered her daughter for adoption.
Thornton grew up knowing she had been adopted, but she and her adoptive family were unaware of her connection to the famous case until a National Enquirer investigation led her to be found at the adolescence, according to the excerpt.
She started “shaking and crying all over the place” when she found out the truth about her birth mother – whose life was described in a TV movie she briefly captured, according to the clip.
“The only thing I knew about being pro-life or pro-choice or even Roe v. Wade was that this person had allowed people to go out and be promiscuous,” Thornton said. .
Still, she considered meeting McCorvey. But she had concerns about a public meeting.
“This is my chance to find out who my birth mother was, and I wasn’t even going to be able to control it because I was thrown into the Enquirer,” she said.
The tabloid ended up posting a story that didn’t name her, but identified her as a pro-life teenager.
Thornton said that in reality his own views on abortion were more complicated.
When she got pregnant at age 20, Thornton decided to have the baby. She said she understood why she should have an abortion should be “a government concern,” but determined the procedure was “not part of who I was,” according to the snippet.
“I knew what I didn’t want to do,” she said of her first child, a son. “I never wanted to make him feel like he was a burden or that he wasn’t loved.”
Thornton, now a mother of three living in Arizona, never met her birth mother, but grew closer in 1994 before having a heated phone call where Thornton said McCorvey told her she should have her. thank you for giving birth to her.
“I thought, ‘What? ! Am I supposed to thank you for getting me pregnant… and then giving me? ‘ Thornton remembers. “I told her I would never, ever thank her for not having an abortion.”
McCorvey, who later became an evangelical Christian and joined the anti-abortion movement, died of heart failure in 2017 at the age of 69.
Thornton said she is telling her story now to relieve herself of decades of secrecy – and do it as she pleases.
“I want everyone to understand that this is something that I chose to do,” she said.
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