All right, ladies.
Downloaded from YTS.MX
It's time to go in and have our voices heard.
(crowd cheering)
Together...
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
we can take our country back!
- Oh, my fleas are waking up.
- Oxygen?
- [coughing]
[wheezing]
[inhaling and exhaling]
This is my deathbed confession.
[laughs]
Okay.
- I want you to meet Jane Roe.
- Jane Roe. - Roe, Jane Roe...
- As in Roe v. Wade.
- Jane Roe's case changed the country.
all: Pro-choice! Pro-choice!
Pro-choice! Pro-choice!
Pro-choice!
- Under the name Jane Roe...
- The anonymous plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade
abortion rights case...
- Affirming a woman's right to choose...
- Norma McCorvey... - Is by her own estimation
perhaps the most famous cleaning woman in America.
all: Pro-choice! Freedom is...
Pro-choice! Freedom is...
Pro-choice!
- Norma McCorvey became the embodiment
of the pro-choice cause.
- A perfect symbol of the movement.
- Norma, why are you doing this?
- Jane Roe's story was a terrible one...
- Unmarried, pregnant, and dirt poor..
- A drug addict and dealer, an alcoholic.
She had dabbled in the occult.
- Norma, you've allowed the killing
of over 35 million children.
- Abortion, one of the most divisive issues of the decade.
- Few issues in America have generated
such strong feelings for and against.
- Either a cherished freedom...
[gunshot]
Or a hated target.
- The furious battle that rages
around all that her name has stood for.
[clamoring]
- Then, in the spring of 1995, the unbelievable happened.
- An extraordinary development today
in the politics of abortion.
- McCorvey did something that will shock people
on both sides of the debate.
- How did it get that bad? Explain that.
- You couldn't have come further, could you?
- Ms. McCorvey, what happened?
[tense music]
*
[light twangy music]
*
- I'm just reading that sign over there.
"No boats or floats, no glass containers,
no wading or swimming, but enjoy your stay here."
[laughs]
Commissioner in precinct number three,
well, he's an asshole.
"But outside that, you know, enjoy our park."
*
Everything's got so many damn rules.
I think they suck.
I learned straight-on
that if you're nice and quiet and polite,
nobody pays any attention to you, and I like attention.
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
"creeps in its petty pace from day to day
"to the last syllable of record time.
"Ah, but what is life but an act upon the stage
signifying nothing?"
- What's that?
- Third act, "Macbeth," Shakespeare.
- Why do you like that bit?
- You know, Macbeth was just a cool guy.
Here you go, baby.
[ducks quacking]
- What did you want to be when you were young?
- When I was young? A movie star.
They went to all these glamorous places,
and they got to fly on airplanes
and smoke cigarettes out of those long cigarette holders.
I mean, it just looked like such fun.
- Do you miss your family?
- You know, you can't miss anything you never had.
I came from a very rough childhood.
*
We were poor.
It wasn't a happy time at all.
It was always survival.
My mom,
she was a bitch.
You know, she was just a two-faced bitch.
She didn't want to have a second child, me.
*
It's just that simple.
She was a drunk.
She'd got a taste of the party life,
and she didn't want to let go.
*
My dad just got through with it.
He packed up his truck and took off.
*
Once she started drinking, I really didn't want
to be around her.
She'd get up, and she'd slap me.
It would make me feel insignificant
and worthless.
And so I asked my friend Rita,
"Do you want to run away with me?"
She said, "Well, where would we run away to?"
And I said, "Oklahoma City."
[soft dramatic music]
To get to Oklahoma City, we had to rob the gas station.
*
I was 10 or 11.
I went over there and opened the drawer up real quietly.
I stuck my hand in the drawer, and I got all the money out,
and I thought, "God, I feel bad."
*
The only hotel we could find was called the Black Hotel.
*
The maid walked in on us and caught us kissing,
Rita and I kissing.
She called the police on us.
*
Anytime you do anything out of the mainframe of society,
it's considered dirty.
- She ran away with another girl
and was arrested,
basically, in the Oklahoma City hotel room
where they'd scammed their way in.
*
By and by, a police detective came by,
took Norma aside,
told her she was in big trouble,
and asked her if she had committed sodomy,
so she said no,
and then she turned to him and said,
"Are you asking whether I put my hand in her underpants?
Yeah, I did that."
- Eventually, they sent me
to Gainesville State School for Girls.
It's a reform school.
You go there to get reformed
if you've been bad.
[light guitar music]
I was, like, so young.
I was sentenced at ten years old,
and I resented it a great deal,
but once I got there and I saw
that it wasn't a dungeon,
it was okay.
Gainesville was a trip... [laughs]
It's wall-to-wall women.
*
My God, I never saw so many boobs in my life...
*
Tons of girlfriends.
I stayed there till I was 15.
*
- Just after she'd come back from reform school,
she was farmed out
to live with somebody who had an extra room.
[ominous music]
- A relative.
- And she was sexually abused by that--that man.
*
- I was just a kid.
*
It was extremely hard for me to tell my mom
what he was doing to me.
- It completely messed up her feelings
about love and acceptance.
- I felt like I was out in the cold.
- There were many instances in her early life
where she really was seriously exploited
and harmed and abused,
so I think she became used to that idea.
That sort of became her identity in a way,
and she never went and got really help
to deal with the abuses.
You know, those don't go away.
[intercom beeps]
- This is my room at the nursing home.
That's a picture of Jesus.
He's my boyfriend.
This reminds me of the pyramids of Egypt,
and then this is a little number
that I picked up at a flea market.
I'm a very glamorous person.
I can't help it. It's a gift. [laughs]
These are my house shoes that my daughter brought me.
- They're quite femme.
- Yeah, I guess they are.
I would consider myself more butch than I would femme.
Reason beings--well, I can't tell you the reason.
[laughs]
I spend most of my days now coloring.
I try to keep away from people.
I was here five months before they even got a handle on me,
and I was very happy just being Norma McCorvey,
but now that they know that I'm Jane Roe,
or AKA Jane Roe,
um...I feel as though they look at me differently.
[morose music]
*
It was 1969.
*
I was pregnant for the second time out of wedlock.
I was a street person,
a drug addict.
I was a drunk.
I had told the doctor that I had been raped.
That's why I wanted to have an abortion.
"Norma," he says, "Tell me about the rape,"
and he asked me a series of questions like,
"Well, the man who raped you, was he black?"
What difference does it make?
I was raped, period.
I went to the illegal underground abortion doctor
in an old, rundown part of Dallas.
It was filth and cockroaches.
I was scared.
A lot of women didn't make it out.
They would bleed to death.
I got out while I could.
I went to an adoption attorney,
and then he told me about these two attorneys,
Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee,
who had just recently graduated law school,
and they were looking for a plaintiff
to help them overturn the Texas abortion laws.
- They needed a poor woman who could not afford
to travel to one of the states where abortion was legal.
She was the person who really fit all the criterion
that they needed.
- Sarah says, "Do you think that women
should have the right to control their own bodies?"
I know how I felt
when I found out that I was pregnant.
And I wasn't gonna let
another woman feel that way,
not cheap, dirty, and no-good.
Women make mistakes,
and they make mistakes with men, and things happen,
so it's just--
it's just Mother Nature at work, you know?
And you can't--
you can't stop it.
You can't explain it.
It's just something that happens.
[morose music]
*
I signed the affidavit that brought Roe versus Wade
into being March of 1970.
- We'll hear arguments for Roe against Wade.
Thank you.
[laughter]
- We do not ask this court
to rule that abortion is good or desirable.
We are here to advocate that the decision
as to whether or not a particular woman
will continue to carry or will terminate a pregnancy
is a decision that should be made by that individual.
*
- Good evening. In a landmark ruling,
the Supreme Court today legalized abortion.
The majority had said that the decision to end a pregnancy
belongs to the woman and her doctor, not the government.
*
- What the court decided was that women
all over the country in every state
would have the right to choose abortion
and that in the first trimester
the state could not interfere.
*
- I read about the decision in the paper
like mostly everybody else did.
[telephone rings]
My phone rang.
It was Sarah,
and she said, "We won,"
and I said, "No, Sarah, you won."
She says, "Well, I thought that maybe
you would be excited."
And I said, "Why would I be excited?
"I had a baby, but I gave her away.
It's for all the women to come after me."
- Okay, we're off to the abortion mill.
They've been killing babies for a long, long time.
- What was it that spurred you to become an activist?
- I'm not an activist. I'm a Christian.
Now, I was an activist when I was protesting
the Vietnam War, when we were out there,
"One, two, three, four, we don't want your effing war."
I owned a saloon called the Mad Hatter
down in Kissimmee, Florida.
I was just a drunken, alcoholic buffoon
who was absolutely pro-death.
I wanted--I was--I wanted women to be able to have an abortion,
because, you know, well, what easier way?
You get a girl pregnant, you just--you don't have to
send her, you know, to Puerto Rico.
You can just go down to the local abortion mill,
get it taken care of, and that's it.
That's where I was; that's who I was.
I wanted to abort my twin boys when my--when I found out
my wife was pregnant with-- with the boys.
I wanted to abort them.
That was--that's the way
that we dealt with things before I met Jesus.
I came to the realization that abortion was murder.
If you say that abortion is murder,
you need to act like it's murder.
Want me to introduce you to these guys?
Here's Colin. He escaped.
That--this guy--
this guy is Malachi.
We named him Malachi,
and this has been an eloquent voice
for little baby boys and girls
and for mamas to change their mind,
to realize what they're really doing.
Ma'am, please, there is a God in heaven,
and he's calling to you today.
Don't walk in that door.
I can tell you exactly what's gonna happen today.
- Somebody is going to die here today.
The question is, who will that somebody be?
You can do all you want to try and cover up and hide the sound
and not give moms a choice.
You go ahead and do that.
- But it's not gonna work.
They're doing everything they can to shut us up,
to drown us out.
They try so hard to cover up the truth
that will set you free.
I'd spent time in jail,
but I have spent many more days and weeks and months in jail
after knowing Jesus than I did before I met Him.
- Reverend Flip Benham is currently serving
a 90-day sentence for trespassing
in an abortion clinic.
- Flip Benham terrorized, really,
many clinics all over the country, including ours.
- Chief! Chief, arrest us!
- He was a constant harasser,
that sort of unctuous, sort of suave, you know,
"I'm the savior of the anti-abortion movement."
- Do you guys need to be arrested or what?
[together] Yes!
- Chief!
- I think he thought that he was gonna be the new face
of Operation Rescue.
- Since the Roe versus Wade decision legalized
child killing in 1973,
Christians are finally facing the reality
that God is calling them to rescue the children.
- In the mid-'80s,
during Ronald Reagan's term in the White House,
abortion really roared to the front burner
of American political consciousness.
Roe v. Wade was at the center of that.
It represented the most loathsome
and terrible practices in our society,
killing children.
We came to call it the pro-death movement.
- You are have far more value than your boobs.
- We should have housing-- - Far more value
in the eyes of God than your two boobs.
I was an activist with Operation Rescue
and other pro-life groups.
- Get up!
Get up! Get up!
- Ahh!
*
- We lay ourselves down at those doors
between the abortionist and his little victim.
- Down on your knees! Down on your...
- We would blockade clinics.
- Don't kill your baby, lady! Please don't!
- The jaws of death await you, woman.
- We would berate women.
- It's murder!
You're killing babies! Murder is killing babies!
- "You're going to murder your child.
You're murdering your baby."
- I'm telling you no one will control my body.
- Counter-protestors on the sidewalks
screaming at each other.
[all shouting]
Fights broke out.
- Operation Rescue members have a radical technique
for shocking people with the gruesome reality of abortion.
- We brought actual fetal remains to the sites.
[all shouting]
- That is the movement,
the movement that has been absolutely clear
about its willingness to use violence against people.
- They did death threats and bomb threats.
We had many, many times
when we had to evacuate our clinic, calls to my home,
"We're gonna cut you up in little pieces."
- Most of those arrested are being charged
with disorderly conduct.
- What they have done is, over and over,
used terrorism, fear tactics.
- We were handcuffed, dragged.
You feel morally vindicated.
And we pray your...
We had to shut down the clinic.
We would win this.
*
- A lot of people are still very shocked
to find out that I've never had an abortion.
[light music]
When I was 15, I was working at the drive-in.
That's where I met Woody.
He's a customer, right?
I'm a stupid little carhop.
I go skating out there, you know,
"Hi, my name's Norma.
Can I take your order?" and he says, "Yeah."
He says, "Give me a fur burger,"
and I said, "A what?"
"A fur burger."
I was a kid. I was still a kid.
I mean, you know, totally oblivious.
*
And I said, "I don't think we have
any of those tonight."
Well, he started laughing.
I said, "Go away. Shoo, shoo."
I said, "I'm being nice now,"
and he says, "Come on. Let me take you home."
He was good-looking.
I knew he had a lot of money.
We spent the night together.
Then my mom, she says,
"Well, if you're gonna sleep with him,
might as well just go ahead and get married."
I married Woody about a year later when I was 16.
He was 22.
*
One day he came home.
I looked at him, and I said, "I'm pregnant,"
and he turned around, and he--he hit me.
He says, "You've been sleeping with somebody else."
I wasn't gonna live like that.
[engine revving]
I threw his ass out.
You don't want to fuck with me.
[gentle piano music]
I had Missy.
She was a cute baby.
My stepfather and my mother
was taking care of Melissa for me,
and they found out that I was out with a girl.
*
I love flirting.
I was a sucker for blondes, you know, and redheads.
Oh, God.
*
My mom told me,
"You going around with those queers has got to stop."
- A lot of people thought that gay people
were child molesters,
that gay people should not be in the company of children.
- My mom took my first daughter away from me
through the courts.
She lied, and...
She told them that I was flamboyant drunk,
a lesbian,
and unable to care for the child,
so the courts believed her.
They didn't believe me.
In fact, they didn't even want to talk to me.
- One of the things I think that happened sometimes
with Norma is that the story she ended up
telling herself was of her as the victim,
because she felt a lot of sadness.
If she wasn't able to take care of her daughter,
in a way, it was easier to blame her mother.
That absolves her.
*
[light twangy music]
- I've got quarters for the jukebox.
- Good.
*
Yeah, when I met Connie, it was the summer of '70.
- Yeah, that's right. - '70.
- I met you shortly after you had the--
- The Roe baby.
- Yeah.
- Where we going, the same place we always go?
- Yeah.
*
Here, you want these?
I didn't have a job, didn't have money, you know,
same old, same old, so I went into Connie's store,
and I ripped off a can of chicken noodle soup
and a Coke and some crackers,
and I got midway to the door,
and she says, "Hey, I can call the police,"
and I offered to clean all the floors in the store for--
for stealing from Connie.
And then she gave me her brand-new red Plymouth Fury
and her credit card, and she says,
"Here, why don't you take my car and have it washed
and gassed up?" I said, "Okay."
- And my roommate said, "Well, who'd you let
borrow your car?"
I said, "This girl I just met."
I said, "She's real tiny, real pretty.
She weighs maybe about 100 pounds."
"Oh, I know who that is. That's Pixie. Oh, she's bad."
I said, "Nah, I don't think so."
"Yeah, she's bad," and I said, "Well, whatever," you know?
Just, "Well, we'll wait and see if she brings my car back,"
and she did.
With a big old smile on her face, she said,
"I washed your car."
- [laughs]
[light guitar music]
- That is so pretty.
Isn't that adorable?
- Look at this. - Oh, it's a cookie jar.
*
- Since 1973, the abortion debate has been mainly vocal
but increasingly has turned violent.
- Christmas Day 1984,
four abortion clinics are bombed.
Two years later, an anti-abortion activist
arrives in town with bombs in his car trunk.
- With all the bombings that were going on
in the abortion clinics,
the flyers...
I thought, "Well, I've got something to say,
"and I'm gonna start getting out there,
and I'm gonna start speaking up."
*
I'm very saddened
that other people want to abolish something
that women should naturally already have.
- Mm-hmm. Have you had any-- any change of heart at all
in the nine years since?
- None whatsoever.
all: Pro-choice is pro-death! Pro-choice is pro-death!
- Norma came to one of our events,
and I'm gonna think maybe it was a clinic open house.
- We were down at the Routh Street Women's Clinic,
and we were doing a lot of picket signs,
and Charlotte came back over to where I was sitting.
- And she just came and introduced herself and said...
- "Oh, hello. My name's Jane Roe."
- And we said, "Oh, well, welcome.
How--thank you for coming," you know?
Norma was charming.
She had sort of a wry sense of humor.
She was very pro-choice. She said, "I want to help."
- The Supreme Court represents a threat
to our personal privacy.
- But it really didn't take too long to recognize
that being friends with Norma was a complicated experience.
- I was doing an interview with Carl Rowan.
Carl had came to my house with his crew,
and he says, "Norma, I want to talk to you
about the rape."
I went to my doctor.
He confirmed that I was pregnant,
and I told him I wanted an abortion.
- You were raped?
- I thought, "I'll just go ahead
and tell the truth. Why not?"
No, I wasn't.
- You were not? - No, I wasn't.
- Oh. So all those stories are not true?
- Yes, sir, yes.
- They are not true? - Right.
- It just shocked me, and I just thought, "Oh, no."
Roe versus Wade had nothing to do with whether she was raped.
There was absolutely no mention
in the Roe versus Wade decision,
but most people think that Roe versus Wade
was decided because the woman was raped,
so now she's lied.
She wasn't raped, so Roe versus Wade is invalid.
That's--I think many people thought that.
[somber music]
- It is the home of Norma McCorvey,
buckshots in the front door the only signs of the terror
seen here early Tuesday.
*
- Some people came by and shot up my car
at 4:40 a.m. in the morning.
*
They turned around.
They shot out my living room windows,
blew away my storm door.
- Some pro-choice group members say with several
abortion rallies planned for this weekend,
what happened here may be the tip of the iceberg.
- I've basically just been hiding out in hotels
to which I cannot afford.
- No word on whether the shooting incident
will keep McCorvey from speaking
at an abortion rally in Washington this Sunday.
- That's when I made my decision
about going to the Washington march.
- Check, one, two.
[dramatic music]
- World News Sunday.
- Good evening.
Not since the height of the Vietnam War
have so many people marched in Washington as did today
in the name of legalized abortion.
- They came from all over because of their concern
that the Supreme Court may reverse the right
to a legal abortion.
Leading the protest was a large contingent
of celebrities.
- And I'm here to say to the Supreme Court,
I will make it my job
to make sure that we have safe, clean abortion.
[cheers and applause]
- I met Norma McCorvey at
the huge pro-choice rally
in Washington, D.C.
It was a chance meeting.
She told me who she was,
and I asked her if she was speaking at the rally,
and she said she had not been invited to speak.
She was very upset.
She felt that she was an activist
and wanted to be an activist
in support of the right to choose abortion.
- I would like to introduce some of the very special people
who are here today
and whose presence has a very important significance.
First, Cybil Shepherd.
[cheers and applause]
- Thank you for coming.
- The pro-choice people,
they never gave me an opportunity.
You know, they just, "Well, no, she can't speak."
What?
- She was not the poster girl that...
would have been helpful to the pro-choice movement.
However, an articulate, educated person could not have
been the plaintiff in Roe versus Wade.
- The battle is not over today.
- I'm a very uneducated person.
I'm not a demure, quiet, picture-perfect,
white-gloved lady.
- Abortion must be legal, safe, accessible.
- After the rape thing, they didn't feel like
she would help protect Roe versus Wade.
Even if she wanted to do that, they were scared.
- She felt that she had been denied the opportunity
to be recognized and be acknowledged.
- Which really set me on fire.
"I'll do it now just to show you I can do it."
- And I'd like to introduce Norma McCorvey,
also known as Jane Roe,
the plaintiff in the very famous
Roe versus Wade Supreme Court decision.
- It's been hard enough for me to come out as Jane Roe
and to step into the limelight, so to speak.
[light piano music]
- She's here today coming out of hiding for this,
and we appreciate her courage.
Don't we? - Whoo!
- We did tons of media.
[camera shutters clicking]
Gloria and I just fell in like with each other.
- Well, that's the way it was back in 1969,
especially in Texas. - When you say,
"That's the way it was," what are you referring to?
- Well, lying to get-- try to get--
to try to get an abortion.
- Excuse me, I don't think that she has capitalized
on this at all.
To the contrary,
it has cost her physically, emotionally, financially.
- I don't charge very much.
- I clean houses, condos, apartments.
Why, does anybody here need a good housecleaning lady?
[upbeat piano music]
She flew Connie and I out to Southern California.
- May I wish you the very best? - Thank you very much.
- Really.
- You're kind of like a hick out of Hickville.
Mmm, that's good.
We did something, like,
54 or 56 interviews in a week.
[together] Right to life!
- Some of them may never come...
[together] You don't care if women die.
- Then we went to fight Operation Rescue.
- Freedom is... all: Pro-choice!
- They were chanting about, "Jane Roe, total lie,
that's why all the babies die,"
or something like that; I'm going, like,
"Oh, please, I could think of something better than that,
you know, in my sleep."
all: Pro-choice! Pro-choice! Pro-choice!
Pro-choice! Pro-choice!
- For us, Jane Roe was like Adolf Hitler
or a Goebbels would be with the Holocaust.
She was the face of
this evil that was brought on our country
by the Roe v. Wade decision.
- It's ludicrous.
They are sending women back to the back streets.
Abortion will continue whether it is legal or not.
Women will die from this.
Jane Roe is every woman
who's ever been denied anything in her whole life,
because we've all been denied something at some point,
so we're all Jane Roes.
- She was the star on the pro-abortion side,
and her presence couldn't possibly be ignored.
- The nominees are
Holly Hunter for "Roe versus Wade."
- We warned you that this might happen
way back when we first met you.
- You let me think that, and you let me hope,
and now I gotta have this baby, and I can't even find a job?
[applause]
- And the Emmy goes to... Holly Hunter.
[applause]
- I would really like to thank the real-life Jane Roe,
Norma McCorvey, for continuing to fight.
[applause]
- Thou shalt not kill!
Read the Ten Commandments. Pick up a Bible.
- Back in Dallas, I was still working in an abortion clinic.
- [shouting indistinctly]
- Behind me here is an abortion mill,
where little baby boys and girls die,
and outside of the abortion mill
are Christian moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas
living out their faith in the streets.
- The pro-lifers were out on the sidewalk
every weekend.
- Baby killer!
- They used to block the doors,
holler at the women,
"Don't go in there and kill your baby!"
And I'd say, "Oh, shit, shut up."
I had a job to counsel women
to make sure that they were making
the right decisions for themselves.
- Would you ladies please consider the child
you're carrying?
- And I've told I don't know how many young women,
"As long as you think you're doing right,
then you're doing right."
How would they feel if we went to their churches and said,
"No, you can't go in there?"
- Jane Roe was the poster child for abortion.
She was their prize,
and there was talk that--
that that had to be dealt with.
[twangy guitar music]
- One Thursday morning Connie called me from work,
'cause we worked at the same clinic.
- I called her, and I told her, I said,
"You'll never believe who's moving next door,"
and she said, "Who?" I said, "You're not gonna--
in a million years, you'd never guess."
"Well, tell me."
"Operation Rescue."
- Norma McCorvey has an unwelcome new neighbor,
Operation Rescue and its national director, Flip Benham.
- We've come to live right next to this place
and give mothers an informed choice.
God just worked a miracle so that we could move
right next door to her office,
Choice for Women.
- They told me it was just an accident.
I'm going like...
"Listen, Flip, don't try to con an old con."
- She was just spitting and fuming
and calling me every f-word that she could,
because the f-word was one of her favorites,
and that--and I was that.
- I told them they were damn liars
and that they better check with their God
to make sure that they were still gonna go to heaven.
- She would call up and put crazy things,
like, on our recordo-phone, saying, "Hey, we're ha--listen,
"we're having barbecued babies today.
"Would you like some, Flip?
"Would you like to come over
and have some barbecued babies with us today?"
And I'm going...
- One day I was sitting on a bench having a cigarette.
He come over there, and he says,
"Can I have a seat here?"
And I said, "Well," I said,
"There's been abortion ass sitting over here."
I said, "If you can sit on abortion ass,"
I said, "Go for it."
- He got to talking to her and being nice to her
and being phony, like he can be
when he's talking to somebody he wants to get over.
- I can remember the day,
and her little truck was parked right over here.
I imagine she's still got that red, ugly truck.
And I said, "Ms. Norma,
Ms. Norma, what are we gonna do?"
And she said, "Well, I don't know,"
and that was the first time she actually communicated with me,
and I said, "Would you come here with me for a minute?
I have something I want to tell you,"
and there was a bench right here,
and she and I sat down.
She sat on this side, and I sat here.
- That's when he gave me his testimony,
and he was a badass,
a sinner just like everyone else, womanizer.
You know, he did it all.
It's kind of like my life.
- When I saw this lady who was totally lost
in her own mess, I saw me.
I knew--I knew-- I knew what she needed.
- Then he--
he just fell kind of quiet,
and he said,
"Do you like what you're doing?"
- Ms. Norma, do you have the assurance
that your sins are forgiven
through Jesus Christ, our Lord?
- Yes, I do.
- Do you renounce the devil and his works
and the sinful desires of the flesh?
- Yes, I do.
- It's all forgiven.
You're brand-new.
Nobody could do that but Jesus.
I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.
- Hallelujah. - Amen.
[applause]
- Hallelujah. Whoo!
- Amen. - Hallelujah!
Here she is,
Ms. Norma Leah McCorvey,
born-again Christian!
- Hallelujah! - Hallelujah!
[applause]
When she jumped from spawn of Satan
to a child of God,
it just turned everything in this world upside-down.
[dramatic music]
- The Jane Roe in Roe versus Wade,
the case that legalized abortion,
says she's joining one of the most controversial
anti-abortion groups in America, Operation Rescue.
- Norma McCorvey has joined a leading anti-abortion group
and found religion.
- The pro-lifers have shown me what it's like
to be a human being
for the very first time in my whole life.
They've loved me.
They've nurtured me,
and they've cared for me.
I've never felt so good about being a woman
or about being just a person
than I have from these people.
- Part of what the anti-abortion movement had
that we did not have was,
"Here--if you come here, you're gonna be good.
"We're the good ones.
We're the ones with God."
- I think she's looking for something
that feels like the answer,
and a vulnerable, impressionable person,
frankly, is being exploited by a very clever leader.
She's looking for--for peace.
- Are you interested in using her as a trophy at all?
- No.
There--there is no trophy for us. It is--
- Come on. - You've gotta understand--
- Would you care just as much about anybody else
as you do Norma McCorvey?
- Well, you know, God has given Norma to us.
[applause]
- I...
see so many unusual turns of events
that I'm not shocked
by much anymore,
but I...
Was surprised.
- The leaders of the pro-choice movement were devastated,
and once more they said, "See? We couldn't trust her."
I can imagine people,
regular old people reading the newspaper
or seeing it on television, thinking,
"If Jane Roe is against abortion, it must be wrong."
- All I'm simply doing is watching out
for Norma's salvation and Norma's ass,
and it's just that simple.
- Now the media instead of being friendly toward her,
all they wanted to do is shut her up
and beat her out of the way,
and that's what they do, and that's what the media does,
and that's what the media tried to do to her.
[dramatic music]
*
- Ms. McCorvey, what happened?
- Well, I've modified my rel--religious path.
- Right. - Now I've changed
my position on choice.
- You realize that over the years you became something
of a symbol of a woman's right to choose.
You must have given a great deal of thought
over these last few weeks and months
about the impact that you're going to have
on the movement itself.
Do you care? - I'm doing this for me.
I'm not doing it for anyone else.
- Does it occur to you that you may also be being used now
by the Operation Rescue people for their purposes?
- No, sir, and they--I will not let them use me.
- That was like being given
the Academy Award.
She was our Oscar,
and we were gonna put her on the mantel
and show her off to the world.
[tense music]
*
I set out immediately to bring her to Washington, D.C.,
and put her on a national stage.
There was nobody like Norma in our movement, nobody.
- Could you tell us why you're here this weekend and...
- Well, I'm here this weekend
to speak here in Washington, D.C.
Um...
I've never had that privilege before,
and the pro-life movement that I've encompassed now
has given me that opportunity.
*
- The whole event was structured
as a memorial service, a kind of funeral.
We actually had fetal remains
in a tiny casket.
We were there mourning for millions
of unborn children,
and Norma's presence
validated that, because, of course,
she was the cause of all this death.
We are here to proclaim that Jane Roe is dead,
and Norma McCorvey lives in Jesus' name!
Hallelujah!
[cheers and applause]
- I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for being so,
so terribly, terribly dumb
and so, so naive.
I thought I was doing something right.
I didn't realize
that I would be leading innocent children
to a senseless...
- It's all right.
- Come on, Ms. Norma.
- And terrible death.
- There is someone who would like to say
and do something special for you today.
[applause]
- I believe I speak for all of us
when we say we forgive you in Jesus' name.
[cheers and applause]
- It was not just a comeback.
It was a comeback with such adulation,
because the antis were so thrilled.
- Jane Roe was now on our side.
We were winning this social war.
[cheers and applause]
- It's hard for me to imagine how she came to terms with--
oh, I don't know--betrayal.
It's a betrayal that she did.
[oxygen tank hissing]
- These are just different trinkets
that I've held on to over the years.
That's a big pair of gold earrings...
A pair of diamond earrings that Connie gave me.
When I first saw them, I went, "Oh."
I love them. I do, I love them.
I wore 'em day and night.
- Did Connie used to spoil you? - Of course she did,
and I spoiled her just as badly.
I don't bring 'em out very often.
Sometimes they remind me of good things.
Sometimes they remind me of bad things,
bad times.
[somber music]
*
- Ms. Connie and Ms. Norma,
they were in that relationship for a long, long time.
*
But when Ms. Norma came to know Jesus,
that meant that there's gonna be some lifestyle changes.
And we talked to them, that homosexuality
destroys those who practice it
and destroy nations that approve of that behavior,
and God calls it a sin.
Now, that's not me being judgmental.
That's just what the truth is.
Am I gonna just give in to my every desire?
Am I gonna just eat bonbons for the rest of my life and--
and just grow up to be a blimp?
Is that what--you know? And the answer is the--no.
Well, I want bonbons. I want that. I want that.
That's just who I am.
I want you to let me be me.
- But bonbons are different than love.
- But that's not love. That's lust.
And all you have to do is go into an emergency room
on Friday night and early Saturday morning
to see what homosexual lust does to each other
so that they can get their own satisfaction.
Then after that's done, they want more.
It just doesn't stop, so you can't call that love.
*
- She knew that if it were known
that she was a lesbian,
she would be kicked out.
*
- One cannot be
a practicing homosexual
and a Christian at the same time.
That would be a distinct impossibility.
- Connie and I are both learning every day...
That there's certain things that we can't do
that we used to.
*
- She had to end her lesbian relationship
and declare that she was no longer homosexual.
[gentle piano music]
*
- Hello. This is Father Frank Pavone,
director of Priests for Life.
Would you welcome with me Norma McCorvey?
Thanks for being on the show.
- Thank you for having me, Father.
- So the Jane Roe of Roe versus Wade
is now a Christian and pro-life.
Could you tell us how that happened?
- I was desperately ashamed of being Jane Roe
when I was on the other side,
and I was a real hurting person.
I--I got involved in alcohol and drugs,
and I lived a lesbian lifestyle, you know,
for a number of years, but God's healed all that.
- Praise the Lord. Wonderful.
[tender music]
And it's-- it's never died down,
and it never will.
*
- They did not have any sexual relation
after she gave her heart to Christ,
as far as I know.
*
I loved her.
I did. I loved her with all my heart.
She was a good person.
*
One part of me says,
I hope that she's not in misery like she was,
but then another part of me says,
I wish I could see her,
so...
*
[upbeat choral music]
*
- Please welcome the amazing Ms. Norma McCorvey,
former Jane Roe.
[applause]
- I have vowed to help do anything
and everything I can do to overturn Roe versus Wade.
- Norma McCorvey and a team of lawyers
will argue before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
- We filed over 5,000 testimonies from women
who've gone through legalized abortion.
A lot of their lives have been
just absolutely miserable since then.
- You know, there were enough bad things happening.
For that to be happening, it was one thing I just,
like, didn't put on my plate, 'cause I--
I couldn't do anything about it,
so it was like, "Oh, what? It's Norma."
- Hello. I'm Norma McCorvey.
Today as a born-again Christian
and a faithful Catholic, I'm working to reverse Roe.
Your vote could determine
who the next Supreme Court justice will be,
the one justice who can either vote to continue Roe
as the law of the land or vote to overturn that decision.
all: Now and at the hour of our death.
- Well, I came here to show my support for life
and to get arrested along with all the other saints.
- You're under arrest for trespassing.
- Blessed art thou among women. - Clear the sidewalk.
- God bless you, Norma. We're praying for you, sister.
- Norma McCorvey has been arrested.
- Hopefully it'll bring a killing to a stop.
- She's American. We're Americans.
- We were in a lot of places together.
We were together for a whole week
in Jackson, Mississippi, in 2006.
Hundreds of folks gathered around,
and we were burning the homosexual flag,
Roe versus Wade,
and the Koran.
- I can't speculate as to why she did what she did.
Now, whether she really believes that,
I don't know.
[light music]
*
- [inhaling and exhaling]
This is my deathbed confession.
[laughs]
Okay.
- Did they use you as a trophy? - Of course.
I was the big fish.
- Do you think they would say that you used them?
- Well, I think it was a mutual thing.
You know, I took their money, and they put me out
in front of the cameras and told me what to say,
and that's what I'd say.
- Wow.
- I took their money, and they put me out
in front of the cameras and told me what to say,
and that's what I'd say.
- Wow.
Wow.
- Give me an example of what you'd say.
- "We've gathered here today
"to pay homage to the children
"that are being aborted in this abortuary.
"We're doing this because abortion is wrong,
"and I, as the former Jane Roe of Roe versus Wade,
"do regret signing the affidavit
for the pro-abortion camps," and that was probably about it.
- It was all an act? - Yeah.
I did it well, too.
I am a good actress.
Of course, I'm not acting now.
I did it well too.
- [sighs]
That's--that really hurts, because...
[gasps] Shakes.
It's big stakes. That's all.
It's just really big stakes.
- I had never heard her say anything like this, never.
But I know what we were doing,
and there were times 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."
[tense percussive music]
What we did with Norma was highly unethical.
The jig is up.
*
- Would it be correct to say that Norma was targeted?
- Sure, Norma was a target.
She was less defended,
more needy.
That was easy to detect,
especially for those of us who were clergy.
We were used to those kinds of personalities.
- I got us a tape.
- We saw that her greatest weaknesses
could be exploited.
*
- Was she told what to say?
- [inhales]
Norma was coached in what to say.
We were concerned that Norma
might not be rock-solid
on the rights of the unborn child.
We weren't sure where she kind of stood on that.
- If a young woman wants to have an abortion, fine.
You know, it's no skin off my ass.
You know, that's why they call it choice.
It's your choice.
- Is it not the case that you did know
where she stood on that?
- Mm.
Let me start again.
I haven't talked about this ever publicly.
This is a first.
We were afraid that Norma
might kind of spill the beans and tell our audience
and the world through the news coverage
that women had a right
to abortion in the first trimester.
That was unacceptable,
so we wanted to control her speech
to make sure she didn't say that.
- Was she being paid by Operation Rescue?
- No. No, she was not.
[sniffs]
- Yes, Norma would be paid.
At a few points, she was actually on the payroll,
so to speak.
You know, there were so many different elements
of the movement that were cutting checks to Norma.
I--I really will never know
how much was actually given to her.
Money was a constant source of tension.
And Norma would complain that she wasn't
getting enough money.
Her complaints were met with checks,
several hundred dollars to a few thousand at a time...
What we called "benevolence gifts."
There was some worry that if Norma wasn't paid sufficiently
that she would go back to the other side.
- She did it for the money.
She said what they wanted her to say,
and she was willing to do it.
- If Norma was being paid
and she was being told what to say,
do you see how it would be difficult for people
to believe any of the things she said during that era?
- Yes, yes.
One day you're selling Nissan,
and the next day you're selling Chevys.
It depends on who you're getting your paycheck from.
- Well, yeah, but she chose to be used.
That's called work.
That's what--you're getting paid for doing this.
Are they using you? Who's using you?
Who has hired you to do this thing?
Are they using you, or are you using them?
Which one?
- You know, for Christians like me...
There is no more important
or authoritative voice
than Jesus, and He said,
"What does it profit a man
"if he should gain the whole world
and lose his soul?"
When you do what we did to Norma...
You lose your soul.
- We're gonna go in there and have cosmetic surgery.
Oh, that feels good. - [laughs]
- Would you like something to drink?
- I'll take a mimosa.
Oh, thank you.
[upbeat music]
*
Oh.
Well, gee, someone drank all mine.
*
- We're about to get a lot more results.
Stand by. We're gonna go over to John King.
- I wish I knew how many abortions
Donald Trump was responsible for.
I'm sure he's lost count,
you know, or if he can count that high.
- More results coming in from Kentucky right now.
- I want Hillary Clinton to be the president tonight.
- All right, take a look at this...
- There we go.
- Hillary Clinton has now taken the lead in Florida
and North Carolina.
- No, Roe isn't going anywhere, no.
It's not going to be tampered with.
They can try,
but it's not happening, baby.
*
Shit.
"Donald Trump will become the 45th president
of the United States."
When I found out this morning,
I just started shaking, I mean, you know, trembling.
It's almost--
it's almost dark inside my brain.
Yeah, I'm gonna go get sick.
[light music]
*
- I still identify as an evangelical,
but I like to think of myself
as lovingly critical of my community.
I guess in some ways I'd like to use whatever years
I have remaining to undo
the damage that I did
and that many movement leaders did
on the pro-life side.
*
I used to think that Roe v. Wade
would never be overturned.
I think Roe v. Wade could be overturned now,
and I think the result of that
would be chaos and pain,
and to impose that kind of crisis
on a woman is unthinkable.
[monitor beeping]
[gentle music]
*
- I know you are.
- I know you're leaving, and I love you very much,
and I'm glad that you were my mom
and that I got to have this time with you.
But the time we've had, I really have enjoyed you.
*
- We love you too, Mom.
*
- The woman whose case led to the Roe v. Wade
Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion has died.
*
- The Texas native later expressed remorse
for her role in the case.
- In 1995 McCorvey converted to evangelical Christianity.
She became a passionate pro-life advocate.
- Politically, Roe versus Wade has also remained divisive.
The question now is, could it be overturned?
- I was sad to hear the news of her passing.
From a policy standpoint,
I think we're in a dangerous spot
when it comes to a woman's right to choose.
- She has left a legacy
that has helped to protect millions of women.
- Absolutely. Gloria Allred, thank you so much.
I appreciate your time. - Thank you.
*
- I have been in so many church services with Ms. Norma,
and this is as quiet as she has been that I can remember.
When she was baptized, she came out a new person.
It looked like she'd dropped 30 years from her life.
It was just the sunshine and the radiance of Almighty God
just pouring out of her, and you...
- I was quietly hoping that this
would end up a kind of intimate affair
where we would really reflect honestly,
candidly about the woman we knew
as Norma McCorvey.
- And the poster child for the pro-choice movement.
- Norma's funeral was the last public event
where she was exploited
as a trophy for the movement,
as a cardboard cutout.
- This is the truth that sets people free,
and it was the truth that set her free.
- They're assholes.
They act-- they all act like God sent them
to preach the Gospel.
- We're going to hear some quick reflections now
from her daughter Melissa and granddaughter Jordan.
- I just want to tell everybody thank you
for all your love and support for her
and everything everybody's done for her in the past.
The last few months of her life,
she started a documentary
to show who she was in the end and--
and as a person, just Norma.
- Her whole life was an attempt
to tell her real story.
That never really happened.
I hope it can posthumously.
- God has a plan for everyone's life.
It was written in the Book of Life
that I get stomped on and shit on
and everything like that,
but then in the end I would prevail.
[laughs]
- Some of you knew Norma as Ms. Norma.
Some of you knew her as Jane Roe,
but I knew her as Grandma Mame.
Mame had a very unique way of making people laugh and smile.
It may not have always been the most appropriate comments,
but she always noted what no one else would say.
My grandmother taught me to believe in myself
and to stand up for what I believed in.
- Women have been having abortions
for thousands of years.
If it's just the woman's choice, then--
and she chooses to have an abortion,
then it should be safe.
Roe versus Wade helps save women's lives.
*
- I couldn't agree more with Norma.
*
Unless you can put yourself
in the mind of a woman facing a pregnancy
she is not ready for,
you cannot pronounce
what she must do.
*
- I don't really give a damn what people think.
It's my mind.
They can't tell me how to think.
They can't tell me what to say.
*
And they damn sure can't tell me what to do.
*
That's the name of that game.
[upbeat music]
*
MAN: I had no idea what I would find
when I went searching for my father.
They flashed the Zodiac Killer, and my heart stopped.
WOMAN: He believes he is the son of the Zodiac.
I would like to explore the idea
of tokenism in the workplace,
where one minority is propped up
to cover the experience of the entire population.
WOMAN: That's interesting.
Wait. Sorry. You're not saying you feel that way here?
(inhales)
What is Devs?
(horn honks)
What is Devs?
GUILLERMO: The journey was perilous,
but Nandor the Relentless stood tall and proud.
Thus, the noble vampire set sail to conquer the new world
for the greater glory of the undead.
-Does my hair really look that billowy? -(wind blows)
Looks fantastic.
I'd never wear anything like that.
(retching)
(gagging, coughing)
(squeaks)