Testimony of Norma McCorvey
(The former Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade)
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June 23, 2005
Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee
109th Congress, 1st Session
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I am the woman once known as the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade. But I dislike the name Jane Roe and all that it stands for. I am a real person named Norma McCorvey and I want you to know the horrible and evil things that Roe v. Wade did to me and others. I never got the opportunity to speak for myself in my own court case. I am not a trained spokesperson, nor a judge, but I am a real person - a living human being who was supposed to be helped by my lawyers and the courts in Roe v. Wade. But instead, I believe that I was used and abused by the court system in America. Instead of helping women in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women throughout the nation. In 1970, I was pregnant for the third time. I was not married and I truly did not know what to do with this pregnancy. I had already put one child up for adoption and it was difficult to place a child for adoption because of the natural bond that occurs between a woman and her child. And after all, a woman becomes a mother as soon as she is pregnant, not when the child is born. And women are now speaking out about their harmful experiences from legal abortion.
Instead of getting me financial or vocational help, instead of helping me to get off of drugs and alcohol, instead of working for open adoption or giving me other help, my lawyers wanted to eliminate the right of society to protect women and children from abortionists. My lawyers were looking for a young, white woman to be a guinea pig for a great new social experiment, somewhat like Adolf Hitler did. I wanted an abortion at the time, but my lawyers did not tell me that I would be killing a human being. My lawyers did not inform me about the life-changing consequences of this decision. I was living on the streets. And while I was confused and conflicted about the decision for many years, and while I was once an advocate for abortion, like many women who choose to participate in abortion, my lawyers did not tell me that I would later come to deeply regret that I was partially responsible for killing 40-50 million human beings. Do you have any idea how much emotional grief I have experienced? It is like a living hell knowing that you have had a part to play, though in some sense I was just a pawn of the legal system. But I have had to accept my role in the deaths of millions of babies and the destruction of women's lives. I will tell you later how I have tried to cope with that. How did I come to the position where I am today?
Abortion is a shameful and secret thing. I wanted to justify my desire for an abortion in my own mind, as almost every woman who participates in the killing of her own child must also do. I made up the story that I had been raped to help justify my abortion. Why would I make up a lie to justify my conduct? Abortion itself is a lie and it is based on lies. My lawyers didn't tell me that abortion would be used for sex selection, but later when I was a pro-choice advocate and worked in abortion clinics, I found women who were using abortion as a means of gender selection. My lawyers didn't tell me that future children would be getting abortions and losing their innocence. Yet I saw young girls getting abortions who were never the same. In 1973, when I learned about the Roe v. Wade decision from the newspapers, not my lawyers, I didn't feel real elated. After all, the decision didn't help me at all. I never had an abortion. I gave my baby up for adoption since the baby was born before the legal case was over. I am glad today that that child is alive and that I did not elect to abort. I was actually silent about my role in abortion for many years and did not speak out at all. Then, in the 1980's, in order to justify my own conduct, with many conflicting emotions, I did come forward publicly to support Roe v. Wade . Keep in mind that I had not had an abortion and did not know much about it at the time.
Then around 1992, I began to work in abortion clinics. Like most Americans, including many of you Senators, I had no actual experience with abortion until that point. When I began to work in the abortion clinics, I became even more emotionally confused and conflicted between what my conscience knew to be evil, and what the judges, my mind and my need for money were telling me was OK. I saw women crying in the recovery rooms. If abortion is so right, why were the women crying? Even Senator Hillary Clinton on January 25, 2005 was reported by the New York Times to finally admit "that abortion is a sad, even tragic choice for many, many women." Actually it is a tragic choice for every child that is killed and every woman and man who participates in killing their own child, whether they know it at the time or not. Many women will be in denial and even pro-choice for years like I was. But participating in the murder of your own child will eat away at your conscience forever if you do not take steps to cleanse your conscience, which I will discuss later. I saw the baby parts, which are a horrible sight to see, but I urge everyone who supports abortion to look at the bodies to face the truth of what they support. I saw filthy conditions in abortions clinics even when "Roe" was supposed to clean up "back alley" abortions. I saw the low regard for women from abortion doctors. My conscience was bothering me more and more, causing me to drink more and more and more. If you are trapped in wrongdoing then all you can do is justify and defend your actions, but the pain gets worse and worse, so I drank a lot to kill the pain. Finally, in 1995, a pro-life organization moved its offices right next door to the abortion clinic where I was working. I acted hatefully towards those people. But those people acted lovingly to me most of the time. One man did angrily accuse me at one point of being responsible for killing 40 million babies, but he later came to me and apologized for his words and said they were not motivated by love. The answer to the abortion problem is forgiveness, repentance, and love. Many of the women who abort their babies ask the little babies to forgive them. Even some abortionists encourage women to write cards explaining their behavior and asking the child's forgiveness. This is an old Japanese custom also. The web is filled with post-abortion recovery and grief sites. According to an amicus brief filed in my case, 100,000 women a year enter abortion recovery counseling programs. Abortion is not a simple medical procedure that is safer than childbirth, it is the killing of a human being. It produces severe psychological and emotional consequences. We can ask the children to forgive us, but the children are dead. They say - Alone, I was born. Alone, I shall die. We must also ask Almighty God to forgive us for what we have done. We must repent of our action as a nation in allowing this holocaust to come to our shores. We have to turn from our wicked ways. Senators, I urge you to examine your own conscience before Almighty God. God is willing and able to forgive you. He sent His own son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins as Roe of Roe v. Wade, and for our sins in failing to act to end abortion and to truly help women in crisis pregnancies. I finally asked the Lord Jesus to forgive me in1995 and immediately dedicated my life to saving children's and women's lives. In the year 2000, I met the lawyers from The Justice Foundation, Allan Parker and Clayton Trotter who are here behind me. I asked them to help me to reverse Roe v. Wade legally. We began collecting evidence from women about the devastating consequences of abortion in their lives. Women are very reluctant to speak about this horrible act which is a crime against humanity. In many cases the denial goes on for decades before they break. Women who have had an abortion often can't even tell their husbands, parents, family, friends or even their physicians or clergy. It is like a time bomb in the heart of every woman who's had an abortion. Eventually we collected almost 1,500 affidavits and filed a motion to reverse Roe v. Wade. As part of my statement to you today, I am enclosing summaries of those women's affidavits along with pictures of some of the women so you can see what abortion does to real women. I am also going to file copies of all the affidavits collected. Also behind me today are some of those witnesses whose affidavits were before the Supreme Court and I would like to ask them to stand at this time.
These women hurt by abortion have formed a movement they call Operation Outcry to cry out to you, to the courts and to God Almighty to end this scourge of abortion in our nation. The Rev. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference helped lead America nonviolently to end the scourge of segregation. When slavery was constitutional, we treated one class of humans as property. We are treating the humans in the mother's womb as property and less than human when we say it is OK to kill them. How can we have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, when we have death by abortion? I have also included an essay on the Scott Peterson double-murder conviction which asks how one baby is a person that can be murdered but not another. On February 22, 2005, the Supreme Court declined to take my case. I was good enough for the courts when they wanted to impose abortion on America, but I wasn't good enough when I asked them to look at the hard evidence of what they have done to America. The Supreme Court of the United States should be ashamed of itself. It has taken this matter of abortion away from the states, the people, and the legislatures, but it refuses to look at the evidence of what it has done. How shameful is that? How can we have liberty without life? Every member of the Supreme Court who supports Roe should be impeached and I believe we should limit the terms of Supreme Court justices to 8 years. The Supreme Court has hurt me and millions of women and children. I urge you to do everything in your power to reverse Roe v. Wade. Since the Supreme Court did not reject our arguments, we are continuing to bring those arguments before the court in case after case after case, including Sandra Cano's case which is in the courts now. Please do not ask a judicial nominee to pledge to maintain Roe v. Wade. If new evidence comes before the court, then the court should be willing change its old precedent, as it has many times. Roe v. Wade is not in the Constitution. It is just a bad Supreme Court decision with bad effects and needs to be reversed. I also support a constitutional amendment to protect all human life. I am also attaching a copy of my 13-page affidavit which was filed in our lawsuit to reverse Roe v. Wade. Some things should never be allowed, even if we want to do them. Murder is one, child abuse is another and allowing abortionists to harm women is another.
endroe.org
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