ABBREVIATIONS:
NMP: |
Norma McCorvey Papers. In Joshua Prager Collection on Norma McCorvey and Roe v. Wade, 1926–2018, Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. |
MJP: |
Papers of Mildred Jefferson, 1947–2010, MC 696, Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. |
HABP: |
Harry A. Blackmun Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. |
PROLOGUE
1“free of interference”: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), Section X.
1feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Ruth B. Ginsburg, “Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade,” University of North Carolina Law Review 63, no. 375 (1985).
1others applauded Roe’s logic: A group of nearly nine hundred American law professors filed a brief for the 1989 case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services affirming the legal right to abortion “as delineated . . . in Roe v. Wade.” Stephen L. Carter, “Abortion, Absolutism, and Compromise,” Yale Law Journal 100, no. 8 (1991): 2747–66.
1the Senate did not even ask: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of John Paul Stevens to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 94th Cong., 1st sess., 1975.
2“undoubtedly the best-known”: Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, And Individual Freedom (New York: Vintage, 1993), 102.
2“Any victory”: Mary Ziegler, Abortion in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 212.
2“exposure to the raw”: Harry A. Blackmun, preamble, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
2unhappily pregnant: Sally Blackmun wrote of her pregnancy in the introduction to the book by Gloria Feldt and Laura Fraser, The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back (New York: Bantam, 2004), xv.
2“the normal 266-day”: Roe v. Wade, Section IV A.
2The Federal Rules: Rule 10a of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states: “The title of [a] complaint must name all the parties.”
3“Despite the use”: Roe v. Wade, Section IV A.
3I read an article: Margaret Talbot, “A Risky Proposal,” New Yorker, January 7, 2010.
PART I: SEX AND RELIGION
7“in the fifteenth century”: Bryan P. Piazza, The Atchafalaya River Basin: History and Ecology of an American Wetland (College Station: Texas A & M Press, 2014), 17.
7beginning in 1755: Carl A. Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803–1877 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992), xi, 4.
7Africans working their fields: Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun, 5.
7five thousand Acadians: Carl A. Brasseaux, email to the author, September 22, 2020.
7French names: Carl A. Brasseaux, email to the author, January 13, 2021.
7forty-nine Acadians: Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun, 7.
8Some deserted: Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun, 66–67.
8a derisive variant: Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun, 101–2.
8named Amand Gautreaux: Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records, vol. 1a, revised, The Registers of St. Charles Aux Mines in Acadia, 1707–1748, 3rd edition (Baton Rouge: Diocese of Baton Rouge, 1999). Judy Riffel, emails to the author, March 13–14, 2015.
8He arrived in Louisiana: Jacqueline K. Vorhies, Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians: Census Records of the Colony, 1758–1796 (Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1973), 441–86. Judy Riffel, emails to the author, March 13–14, 2015.
8generations of his progeny: Vorhies, Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 463. Judy Riffel, emails to the author, March 13–14, 2015.
8daughter named Bertha: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 27, 2011.
8married just six months: Amar Gourthreau and Bertha Chenvert, certificate of marriage, July 15, 1922, Marksville, LA. Courtesy of Velma Gross.
9A Pentecostal preacher: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
9while the children hid: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
9“Many illegitimacies”: Pete Daniel, Deep’n As It Come: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1996), 120.
9American Social Hygiene Association: Daniel, Deep’n As It Come, 119.
9“We hope this”: Daniel, Deep’n As It Come, 120.
9“too poor to notice”: Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun, 75.
9“You wouldn’t even say”: Sandra Guilbeau, interview with the author, January 9, 2015.
9“when a girl”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
10“English, and no other”: Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals (Springfield, IL: Collier, 1897), 26.
10Louisiana banned French: Constitutions of the State of Louisiana: Text of the Constitution Adopted June 18, 1921, With Text of Corresponding Articles in All of the Constitutions of the State, Including All Amendments. Compiled by Huey P. Long, Governor. Article XII, Section 12, 377–78. Judy Riffel, email to the author, March 13, 2015.
10spoke French and were illiterate: U.S. Census, 1940, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, Ward 1, ED 39-1, sheets 6B–7A, family 122, line 73.
10“against sickness”: Victor Simon, letter to Emar Gautreaux, November 16, 1936. Courtesy of Sandra Guilbeau.
10“outgoing, laughing”: Julia Anderson, née Saucier, interview with the author, February 16, 2015.
10brothers were also in the fields: Sandra Guilbeau, interview with the author, January 29, 2015.
11“burn our legs”: Sandra Guilbeau, interview with the author, January 29, 2015.
11“It makes you”: Sandra Guilbeau, interview with the author, January 9, 2015.
11On April 25, 1940: U.S. Census, 1940.
11It cost four dollars: U.S. Census, 1940.
11Brother Deshotels: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 27, 2015.
12“If a girl”: Julia Anderson, née Saucier, interview with the author, February 16, 2015.
12Mildred went off: Julia Anderson, née Saucier, interview with the author, February 16, 2015.
12Emar and Bertha met them: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
12“I can tell you”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, October 14, 2016.
12Velma’s biological father: Mary told Velma the name of her biological father: Earl Pendarvis. Pendarvis died in 1975 having never met his daughter. He was fifty-six and estranged from his wife and their five children. They did not know of Velma but did know of at least two other children Earl had fathered out of wedlock. Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015. Earl Pendarvis Jr., interview with the author, May 3, 2021.
12in the Good Book: Wavia Ital, interview with the author, January 28, 2015.
12Emar kept the Bible: Sandra Guilbeau, interview with the author, January 29, 2015.
13“That pregnancy changed”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
13a job waitressing: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
13His father William: Buck Graves, interview with the author, May 5, 2015.
13Alma was readying to marry: Alma married William Nelson, then Charlie Warren, then Otis Horton, then Kimble McAuley, the last in December 1943. Dallas County District Court records.
13wed Mary: “Double Wedding Is Celebrated on Saturday,” State Times Advocate (Baton Rouge), March 10, 1943.
13the Atchafalaya would capture: John McPhee, “Atchafalaya,” New Yorker, February 23, 1987, 39.
13“always wondered why”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
14Norma Lea Nelson was born: Norma Lea Nelson, certificate of birth, September 22, 1947. Division of Public Health Statistics, Louisiana State Department of Health.
14Mary would never forget: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 25, 2015. “Another Storm Is Approaching Florida Coast,” State Times Advocate (Baton Rouge), September 22, 1947.
15“We just heard”: Julia Anderson, née Saucier, interview with the author, February 16, 2015.
15trees were straight: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 23, 2015.
15To be a Jehovah’s Witness: The sect believed that the end of days was to come before the last of those alive in 1914 had died. Previously, it had determined that God would establish a new kingdom on earth in 1914. When this did not happen, it changed its teachings. It would do so again in 2013, determining that 1914 simply marked the beginning of the “last days” on earth.
15will spare 144,000 non-sinners: The teaching is taken from Revelation 14:1–4 (KJV).
16“that’s where they would sit”: Sandra Guilbeau, interview with the author, January 9, 2013.
16“resented the teachings”: Mary Nelson, interview with the author, October 5, 2011.
16“She was the opposite”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
16“a stupid little imp”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
16“always sad”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
17Wavia suggested: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 13, 2015.
17“He said ‘no!’ ”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 13, 2015.
17“I felt a bond”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, September 14, 2020.
17“kept house”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 13, 2015.
18her grades: Elementary Pupil’s Cumulative Record, Dallas Independent School District.
18twelfth percentile: The test was the California short-form test of mental maturity. Elementary Pupil’s Cumulative Test Record, Dallas Independent School District.
18“absent on slightest excuse”: Elementary Pupil’s Cumulative Test Record, Dallas Independent School District.
18“Norma was a handful”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 22, 2013.
18“lay out with men”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 4, 2014.
18God was punishing: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
18“that I tried”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 4, 2014.
18“a delinquent child”: Clerk’s File Docket and Civil Fee Book, Juvenile Court, Dallas County, no. 60–1993–Juv, October 31, 1960.
18her father paid: Clerk’s File Docket and Civil Fee Book, Juvenile Court, Dallas County, no. 60–1993–Juv, October 31, 1960.
18a Polynesian peasant: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
18raped in a shower: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
19But there never: Sister Yolanda Martinez (Mount St. Michaels), interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
19an older student: “Norma McCorvey a.k.a. Jane Roe,” unpublished reminiscence written by Norma and Alyssa Lenhoff, undated. NMP.
19Mary and Olin divorced: Certificate of divorce, February 21, 1961. Dallas County District Court records.
19“She lost all control”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 4, 2014.
19shaved her eyebrows: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
19“committed to an institution”: Permanent Census Card, Dallas Independent School District.
19“one of the best”: Texas Youth Council, Report to the Governor, 1964.
19“The pre-Christian world”: Geoffrey Stone, Sex and the Constitution (New York: Liveright, 2017), 4.
20the Apostle Paul: 1 Corinthians 7 (KJV).
20“man by his very nature”: Augustine, The City of God (De civitate Dei), translated by John Healey (London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, 1890), 14, 17.
20“helped shape traditional American”: Stone, Sex and the Constitution, 20.
20three dots inked: The tattoo has been associated with various Southeast Asian gangs.
20“It was explained to me”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 24, 2015.
20“mi cuata”: In her autobiography, McCorvey misspelled the nickname as “mi quita.” Norma McCorvey and Andy Meisler, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade, and Freedom of Choice (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 39.
21“what’s been going on”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
21“She drank”: Mary Nelson, interview with the author, October 5, 2011.
21“I beat”: Mary Nelson, interview with the author, October 5, 2011.
21“soft and gentle”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
21“furburger”: McCorvey and Meisler, I Am Roe, 42.
21“Back in Brooklyn”: Carol, interview with the author, October 9, 2015. She does not wish to have her surname used.
21her mother had sent: Carol, interview with the author, October 9, 2015.
22“they got rid”: Anthony McCorvey, interview with the author, December 22, 2014.
22“Woody” was “hotheaded”: Anthony McCorvey, interview with the author, December 22, 2014.
22“It was overkill”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
22Norma loved to perform: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 24, 2015.
23“I wanted to be the first”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
23confided in a reporter: Monika Maeckle, “The Double Life of Norma McCorvey,” Westwood Magazine (supplement of Dallas Times Herald), October 18, 1981.
23“to excess”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
23at 6:27 a.m.: Melissa Renee Sandefur, certificate of birth, May 25, 1965, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Texas Department of Health.
24Louisianan named Lodo Jeansonne: Lodo Chenevert lived from March 28, 1882, to June 27, 1966.
24“We took good care”: Mary Sandefur, interview with the author, October 5, 2011.
24a judge decreed: Court of Domestic Relations, Dallas County, no. 65–4906–DR/2, September 30, 1965.
24he got married: Elwood John McCorvey and Norma married on June 17, 1964, and divorced on September 30, 1965. He married Joyce Ann Weeks on October 15, 1965. Texas Divorce Index, 1968–2002.
25“She was real cute”: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
25“We went on a honeymoon”: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
25they moved into an apartment: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
25second attempt at a diploma: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell. Courtesy of Bell’s widow, Sherry Angel.
26shots from an osteopath: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
26“Ms. Sandefur wanted”: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
26“Norma wasn’t very responsible”: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
26“Norma wanted”: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
26“Mary adopted her”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 22, 2015.
26“intense pressure”: Maeckle, “Double Life,” 36–43.
26“kidnapped”: McCorvey and Meisler, I Am Roe, 70.
27“I was always flirting”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
27looking at men: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
27Ciudad Acuña: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
27“I was going”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
27“She knew all the right”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
27She cut up his clothes: Glenda Diane Watrous, interview with the author, April 1, 2015.
27“I dodged it”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
28up to twenty Coors: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, November 8, 2012.
28twelve husbands: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, June 30, 2015.
28a bar called Mercy Mary’s: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, August 3, 2015.
28“We couldn’t tell anyone”: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, June 30, 2015.
28“What’d we do”: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
28“If it was a feminine”: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, November 8, 2012.
28She phoned back: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
28“I’ve heard of a way”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, July 8, 2016.
29“I would deliver the baby”: Richard Lane, interview with the author, June 7, 2012.
29Dr. Wonderful: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 27, 2013.
29she was drinking more: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
29“I can never recall”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
29The baby weighed: Dallas Osteopathic Hospital discharge records, October 11, 1967. Courtesy of Jennifer Ferguson.
29“she fucked up”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
29“I never been”: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, November 8, 2012.
30“She told me she had a little”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
30“I wonder”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
31“Their integrity”: Mr. and Mrs. Hillary Messimer, letter to Henry McCluskey. Courtesy of Jennifer Ferguson.
31Four days after: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, October 26, 2015.
31“She was like”: Cindy Kebabjian, interview with the author, March 4, 2013.
31her biological father: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, October 26, 2015.
32“I remember the name”: Donna Kebabjian, interview with the author, June 11, 2012.
32The river no longer: Piazza, Atchafalaya River Basin, 157–74.
32“didn’t follow through”: Sandra Guilbeau, interview with the author, February 12, 2015.
33“I will let you”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 22, 2013.
33“It was real peaceful”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 11, 2013.
33“It was fun”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, July 8, 2016.
33“I started seeing her”: Patti Milford, interview with the author, February 10, 2015.
33“It’s one of those things”: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, February 10, 2015.
34“I’m not denying it”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 23, 2015.
34“Valium was the answer”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
34“Why the hell”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
34hang it from a rope: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
34William Kenneth Wheaton: These paragraphs on Wheaton are drawn from a series of conversations and emails with his children Ken Wheaton and Wendy Craig, August and September 2015.
35claim to the family: Wendy Wheaton, interview with the author, May 3, 2015.
35Daughter Wendy grabbed: Wendy Wheaton, interview with the author, May 3, 2015.
35on grounds of “desertion”: Commonwealth of Virginia Report of Divorce, State File Number 68 004935.
35Wheaton wed again: Application for marriage license, State of Ohio, license no. 434717.
35cut off at the joint: Jay Helfert, interview with the author, January 14, 2015.
35Norma took note: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, October 24, 2013.
35“All I knew”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 10, 2015.
36“When you’re in a hurry”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, July 8, 2016.
36douching was protection enough: Angela Bonavoglia, ed., The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out Against Abortion (New York: Random House, 1991), 138.
36“to turn my body”: Lloyd Shearer, “This Woman and This Man Made History,” Parade, May 8, 1983.
36“They were so highfalutin”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, October 24, 2013.
36“I think he had been married”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, October 24, 2013.
36“I really wanted”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, October 24, 2013.
36“so that we could drink”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, October 24, 2013.
36Wheaton had been arrested: Ken Wheaton recalls that his father had numerous DUIs which led to the suspension of his license. Texas Department of Public Safety, Arrest Record for DUI, February 14, 1980. Ken Wheaton, email to the author, May 10, 2015.
36“I remember her”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 23, 2014.
38except to save: Texas Penal Code § 1196 (1961).
38Alaska, Hawaii: Centers for Disease Control, “Abortion Surveillance Report,” 1970, Table 21.
38not explicitly illegal: In November 1969, in the case of United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), a federal district judge named Gerhard Gesell declared DC’s anti-abortion statute unconstitutional.
38The doctor Hippocrates: The Hippocratic Oath was long mistranslated as a general proscription of abortion. Much of the pro-life community continues to see it as such. But John M. Riddle, in Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), makes clear that the oath merely proscribes the use of pessaries, a type of vaginal or uterine suppository, to cause abortion. In reviewing Riddle’s book, Professor James Mohr confirmed this translation with Owsei Temkin, a medical historian and scholar of classical language who was then director emeritus of the Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine. See James C. Mohr, “Sexuality, Reproduction, Contraception, and Abortion: A Review of Recent Literature,” Journal of Women’s History 8, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 9–10.
38“When couples have children”: Aristotle, Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), ch. 16.
38“The Bible contains”: Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1996), 448.
39the book of Exodus: Exodus 21:22: “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine” (NKJV).
39“as a tort”: Daniel Schiff, Abortion in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 27.
39rabbinic consensus: Schiff, Abortion in Judaism, 4.
39“fully formed”: Translation by Dr. David Ratzan, email to the author, January 27, 2021.
39“non formatum puerperium”: St. Augustine of Hippo, Writings on the Old Testament, translated by Joseph T. Lienhard and Sean Doyle (New York: New City Press, 2016), 131.
39writing of a priest: Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Aemilius Friedberg, 2nd ed. Aemilius Ludovicus Richteri, vol. 2: Decretalium Collectiones (Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, 1881), 794. Translation by Dr. Michael Stoller, email to the author, January 22, 2021.
39three of the next 658 years: In 1588, Pope Sixtus V issued a papal bull stating that abortion was “true homicide” whether the fetus was “formed or unformed.” Three years later, his successor reinstated the canonical distinction between abortions early and late. Wrote Pope Gregory XIV: “We forever reduce the penalties for procuring the abortion of an inanimate fetus.” Laerzia Cherubini, et al., Magnum bullarium Romanum, a Beato Leone Magno usque ad S. D. N. Benedictum XIV, 2nd ed. (Luxembourg: H.-A. Gosse & Soc., 1742), 2:702–03, 766–67. Translation by Dr. Michael Stoller, email to the author, January 22, 2021.
39Pope Pius IX: Pope Pius IX, Apostolica Sedis Moderationi, October 12, 1869.
39lawyer named Thomas Carr: The phrase used by Pope Pius is “Procurantes abortum effectu sequuto,” which means “Procuring an abortion subsequently accomplished.” Translation by Dr. Michael Stoller, email to the author, January 25, 2021.
40“animatus” and “inanimatus”: Rev. Thomas J. Carr, “The Constitution ‘Apostolicae Sedis Moderationi’ Explained,” Irish Monthly 7 (1879): 390-391.
40codification of canon law: Codex Iuris Canonici Pii X Pontificis Maximi iussu digestus Benedicti Papae XV autoritate promulgates (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1918).
40“The life of each”: The Vatican does make two exceptions, allowing abortion in cases of ectopic pregnancy and when the uterus becomes cancerous. Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, encyclical, December 31, 1930.
40“quick with child”: Conn. Stat., tit. 22, § 4 (1821).
40Texas made no such: Professor James Mohr, author of Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800–1900 (New York: OUP, 1978), the foundational history of American anti-abortion laws, says that although the Texas law did not mention quickening, it was still the case that only through quickening could a court determine if a woman was pregnant. James Mohr, interview with author, February 18, 2021. Texas Laws 1854, c. 49, § 1, set forth in H. Gammel, The Laws of Texas (1822–1897), vol. 3 (Austin: Gammel Book Co., 1898).
40“death and publicity”: Leslie Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 125.
40died having abortions: Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime, 125.
40two to three thousand annually: Christopher Tietze, MD, “Abortion as a Cause of Death,” American Journal of Public Health 38, no. 10 (October 1948): 1434–41. Dr. Tietze reported that, according to the Census Bureau, there were 2,677 abortion-related deaths in 1933, 2,774 in 1934, 2,769 in 1935, 2,481 in 1936, 2,113 in 1937, 1,816 in 1938, and 1,786 in 1939. The numbers include deaths not only from illegal abortions but from “unintentional” ones, i.e. miscarriages, and “therapeutic” ones, i.e. that category of abortion permitted by law. According to Stanley Henshaw, a sociologist who did abortion research at the Guttmacher Institute for decades, owing to stigma, many alleged miscarriages that resulted in death were in fact abortions, and many deaths by abortion were attributed instead to septicemia, poison and other causes. As a result, he says, the true number of abortion-related deaths was “significantly higher” than what the Census Bureau reported.
40a naturopath named Ruth Barnett: Barnett estimated that between 1918 and 1968, she performed forty thousand abortions. In 1959, the author Don James, writing under the pseudonym James Donner, profiled Barnett in his book Women in Trouble. James did not name Barnett but confided to a classroom of his students at Portland State University that Barnett was the subject of his book. Barnett later wrote an autobiography titled They Weep on My Doorstep. Marlene Howard, interview with the author, December 26, 2020.
40three blocks of brownstones: Courtney Ryley Cooper, Designs in Scarlet (New York: Little, Brown, 1939), 213.
40“There is a significant disparity”: Herbert L. Packer and Ralph J. Gampell, “Therapeutic Abortion: A Problem in Law and Medicine,” Stanford Law Review 11 (1959): 417.
40“push for maternity”: Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime, 163.
4190 percent: Mary Steichen Calderone, MD, “Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem,” American Journal of Public Health 50, no. 7 (July 1960): 948–54. Dr. Calderone cites the 90 percent figure, which was the conclusion of a 1955 conference on abortion sponsored by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the New York Academy of Medicine.
41George Timanus in Maryland: At a 1955 conference sponsored by Planned Parenthood, Dr. Timanus stated that between 1920 and 1951, he had performed 5,210 abortions on women referred to him by 353 doctors. George Lotrell Timanus, “Abortion in the U.S.,” Time, June 2, 1958.
41the first American: Diane Bernard, “How a Miracle Drug Changed the Fight Against Infection during World War II,” Washington Post, July 11, 2020.
41284 confirmed deaths: Thomas W. Hilgers, Dennis J. Horan and David Mall, eds., New Perspectives on Human Abortion (Frederick, MD: Aletheia Books, University Publications of America, Inc., 1981), 82. While the number of abortion-related deaths dropped steadily through the decades, they rose between 1956 and 1961, from 221 to 324.
41owing to stigma: Stanley Henshaw, interview with author, June 17, 2019.
41133 abortion-related deaths: Hilgers, Horan and Mall, New Perspectives on Human Abortion, 82.
41a thousand clergymen: The network was called the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion. Arlene Carmen and Howard Moody, Abortion Counseling and Social Change (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1973).
41activist Lawrence Lader: Lader compiled his list of states with “skilled abortionists” in 1964. Lawrence Lader, Abortion (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 54–55.
41“Our society”: Tom C. Clark, “Religion, Morality, and Abortion: A Constitutional Appraisal,” Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 2, no. 1 (1969).
41“extremely frustrated”: Plato, Timaeus, 91c: “A woman’s womb or uterus, as it is called, is a living thing within her with a desire for childbearing. Now when this remains unfruitful for an unseasonably long period of time, it is extremely frustrated and travels everywhere up and down her body. It blocks up her respiratory passages, and by not allowing her to breathe it throws her into extreme emergencies, and visits all sorts of other illnesses upon her.” J. M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson, eds., Plato: Complete Works, translated by Donald J. Zeyl (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 1290.
42“chaperones, veils, wigs”: Thomas B. Edsall, “Why the Fight Over Abortion Is Unrelenting,” New York Times, May 29, 2019.
42excluded women: Founded in 1846, the AMA did not begin to admit women until 1915.
42“Abortion was murder”: Kristin Luker, “The War Between Women,” Family Planning Perspectives 16, no. 3 (March/April, 1984): 105–10.
42now safer than birth: According to the abortion researcher Stanley Henshaw, the mortality risk of legal induced abortion in 1972 was 4.1 per 100,000. That same year, the mortality risk of pregnancy and childbirth was 15.2 per 100,000 live births. (This estimate excludes deaths from ectopic pregnancy and induced abortion, and is based on data reported by the CDC.) The figures for 1970, writes Henshaw, are less accurate because the CDC had not begun collecting abortion mortality data. Stanley Henshaw, email to the author, July 5, 2020.
42illegal abortion accounted for: In 1972, there were thirty-nine deaths from illegal abortions, twenty-four from legal. Lisa M. Koonin, Jack C. Smith, Merrell Ramick and Clarice A. Green, “Abortion Surveillance – United States, 1992,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 45, no. SS-3 (May 3, 1996): 1–36.
43“The contraceptive was faulty”: Lawrence Lader, “Cases of Non-Hospital Abortion,” 1966–69, Woman #144, Lawrence Lader Papers, New York Public Library.
43“All the doctors”: Lader, “Cases of Non-Hospital Abortion,” Woman #144.
43“They were getting illegal abortions”: Frank Bradley, interview with the author, August 1, 2012.
43American Law Institute: The American Law Institute, a body of lawyers, professors and judges, proposed the reform of abortion law in 1959. In 1967, Colorado became the first state to adopt its guidelines.
43AMA now changed course: Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (New Haven: Yale Law School, 2012), 26.
PART II: THREE TEXANS
47Mildred Jefferson was born: Mildred Fay Jefferson, standard certificate of birth, Texas Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
47wedding in Waco: Gurthie Lee Roberts and Millard F. Jefferson, certificate of marriage, June 16, 1926, DOC128S29111, McLennan County Marriage Book, 160A.
47the family farm: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interviews with the author, March 24, 2016, and April 28, 2016.
48“She had nerve”: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
48“Why don’t you?”: Esther Guilfoy, “Brilliant Woman Surgeon Joins VA Hospital Staff,” Manchester Union Leader, November 4, 1955.
48after reading of Elizabeth: Application for admission to Harvard Medical School, October 22, 1946. Courtesy of the Harvard Medical School Registrar.
48“When they killed”: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
48snipping with a scissors: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
48“I’m going to be a doctor”: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
48“They had a bulletin board”: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
48“I would be down there”: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
48visited from his pulpits: Eleanor Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted,” Boston Post, July 15, 1951.
48“she knew God”: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
48no one spoke of abortion: Kirthel Roberts, interviews with the author, February 23, 2016, and March 24, 2016.
49“I always wanted”: Mildred Jefferson, “A New Iconoclast: You might not like what she says, but Mildred Jefferson speaks her mind,” Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1990.
49her 138 IQ: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
495 feet 3¾ inches: Application for admission to Harvard Medical School, October 22, 1946.
49“If you told her”: Fannie Lou Roberts Thompson, interview with the author, March 24, 2016.
50group of Methodist ministers: Texas College, “Mission & History,” texascollege.edu.
50“You’d never say”: Otile McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight Against Abortion,” Boston Sunday Globe, December 3, 1976.
50“No other medical school”: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
50Her father had enrolled: Plainsdealer 46, no. 27 (July 9, 1943): 5.
50heading to South Korea: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
50“a jewel too costly”: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
50A’s at Tufts: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
50“all mankind”: Application for admission to Harvard Medical School, October 22, 1946.
50first black woman: Harvard acceptance letter, January 21, 1947.
50Read a headline: “Harvard Admits Race Woman to Medical School,” Cleveland Herald, May 31, 1947.
50because she was black: The grant was from the Lt. Hirschel Gutman Fund, which was created “for the advancement of American ideals.” “Establish Fund in Honor of Lt. Gutman,” Newton Graphic, February 8, 1945.
51“most revolting”: “Gutman Grant Sends Negress to Harvard Med,” Jewish Advocate, May 29, 1947.
51“Americans are coming to realize”: “Gutman Grant Sends Negress to Harvard Med.”
51ballet and bridge: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
51top third of her class: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 28. Interview with A. J. A. Campbell, March 13, 1973.
51surgical internship: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
51writing in breathless prose: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
51“a willing of the right thing”: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
51“in the interest of science”: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
51was now a captain: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
51Hattie Carnegie, Ceil Chapman: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
51took out a small loan: Charlestown Savings Bank loan, February 1, 1955. MJP, Box 3, Folder 4.
52“the first real defeat”: Mildred Jefferson, letter to Dr. Carl W. Walter, October 15, 1955. MJP, Box 16, Folder 9.
52“serious personal problems”: Mildred Jefferson, letter to Dr. Carl W. Walter, October 15, 1955. MJP, Box 16, Folder 9.
52“It may be that”: Mildred Jefferson, “Dissonance,” Bulletin, September 1955. MJP, Box 22, Folder 13.
52“girlish whims”: Dr. Carl W. Walter, letter to Mildred Jefferson, October 11, 1955. MJP, Box 4, Folder 9.
52“too precious to waste”: “Positive approach to life needed: MD,” Ottawa Citizen, November 5, 1973.
52“she would run into problems”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 29. Interview with A. J. A. Campbell, March 13, 1973.
52Mildred had black friends: Shane Cunningham, email to the author, May 5, 2020.
52The Progressives: Shane Cunningham, email to the author, May 5, 2020.
52accepted fellowships: Mildred Jefferson, letter to Dr. Morris Cohen, October 18, 1962. MJP, Box 16, Folder 9.
52a job in cancer research: Mildred Jefferson, letter to Dr. Morris Cohen, October 18, 1962.
52“a superb doctor”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 57. Interview with Sidney Farber, March 9, 1973.
52research on tissue transplant: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 57. Interview with Sidney Farber, March 9, 1973.
53A block away: Raymond Roberts, interview with the author, February 18, 2016.
53She didn’t join them: Raymond Roberts, interview with the author, February 18, 2016.
53he was smitten: Shane Cunningham, interviews with the author, February 19, 2016, and June 3, 2016.
53“As with everything”: Anne Fox, interview with the author, February 23, 2016.
53“My Muse”: Shane Cunningham and Mildred Jefferson letters. MJP, Box 3, Folder 15.
53“Our relationship”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, June 3, 2016.
53“The term was moral turpitude”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, June 3, 2016.
54miscegenation was: Peter Wallenstein, Tell the Court I Love My Wife: Race, Marriage, and Law — an American History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 254. In 1957, South Dakota and Colorado repealed laws against interracial marriage, lowering the number of states with such laws to twenty-four. In most of those states, interracial marriage was a felony. In a few, it was not criminalized but was prohibited in-state.
54matter of will: Roberts, “Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Knew What She Wanted.”
54“extreme unfairness”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, October 28, 2016.
54“She would have been”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, February 19, 2016.
54refused even to wire: Mildred Jefferson, letter to John Jones, September 14, 1961. MJP, Box 2, Folder 11.
54“It is still traditional”: Mildred Jefferson, letter to Kivie Kaplan, March 22, 1962. MJP, Box 16, Folder 9.
55she volunteered nothing: Jefferson, “A New Iconoclast.”
55“If a newspaper went unread”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, February 19, 2016.
55“partly because she was a woman”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 61. Interview with Claude Welch, March 12, 1973.
55“I was aware”: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Jennifer Donnally, October 22, 2007. Interviews of Jennifer M. Donnally, 2007–2012, MC1059, Box 60, CD 6. Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
56She listened quietly: Dr. Barbara Rockett, interview with the author, September 8, 2017.
56“Her manners were tops”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 58. Interview with Sidney Farber, March 9, 1973.
56choked with papers and belongings: Shane Cunningham, affidavit, 1980. NMP.
56“There would be little aisles”: Shane Cunningham, affidavit, 1980.
56“How can you live”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
56“If you are subconsciously”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
56“part of her intellectual”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, February 19, 2016.
57“the voice of God”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, June 4, 2016.
57“only my father”: Vital Concerns, television program, Boston Neighborhood Network, October 1, 2009.
57remained “profound”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, June 4, 2016.
57“The male parent”: Mildred Jefferson, “Abortion: Self-Defeat Solution,” Centerscope 5, no. 1–5 (March/April 1972): 9.
57“I was amazed”: Dr. Barbara Rockett, interview with the author, June 3, 2016.
58Theirs was a country life: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, November 2, 2015.
58called black people: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, July 27, 2012.
59fell for Virginia: The name Virginia is a pseudonym to protect her identity.
59“My great suggestion”: Curtis Boyd, “The Morality of Abortion: The Making of a Feminist Physician,” St. Louis University Public Law Review 13, no. 1 (1993–94): 303–14.
59“The fact that”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, July 27, 2012.
59“Virginia was a sinner”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, November 2, 2015.
59“Every act of intercourse”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
59“Most Courteous”: Life Matters: The Story of an Illegal Abortionist, film, directed by Kyle Boyd, Grayscale, 2002. Available at: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lifematters/film.html.
59“how we should live”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
59carhop named LaMerle: LaMerle Boyd, email to the author, October 24, 2016.
59“I learned that he”: LaMerle Boyd, email to the author, July 30, 2016.
60“God came down”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, November 2, 2015.
60“We were both devout”: Life Matters, film.
60peddling hardbound Bibles: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, October 27, 2016.
60he became a Unitarian: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, October 27, 2016.
61“I was embarrassed”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
61looked for a doctor to perform: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, November 2, 2015.
61“He was the native son”: Life Matters, film.
61“the problem that”: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963), 63.
61“something more”: Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 78.
61“a simple, young”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
62“just sort of moved”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
62an abortion referral network: In 1967, in New York, a minister named Howard Moody began the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion. It spawned other clergy referral networks, including the Clergy Consultation Service on Problem Pregnancy in Chicago and another group by the same name in Texas, which Boyd joined.
62Twenty-nine states: Lawrence Lader, Abortion (Indianapolis: Bobbs–Merrill, 1966), 54–55. Lader compiled his list of states with “skilled abortionists” in 1964, three years before the formation of the Clergy Consultation Service.
62Boyd agreed to help: Glenna Boyd, interview with the author, January 5, 2021.
62“I knew it was illegal”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, July 27, 2012.
62“strike a blow”: Life Matters, film.
63“you get charged”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, July 27, 2012.
63“If the death”: Texas Penal Code § 1194.435 (1961).
63“Do not have complications”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, August 9, 2016.
63“I became quite a master”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
63a young Sioux woman: Reminiscences of Dr. Curtis Boyd, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health Project, 2001, 11. Oral History Archives, Columbia University.
63“It was scary”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
63“The second-trimester”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
63“the days of honest abortion”: Norman Mailer, The Prisoner of Sex (New York: Little, Brown, 1971), 140.
64“this is fabulous”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
64“I was the only one”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
64some six hundred: Reminiscences of Dr. Curtis Boyd, 92.
64Such men were “scoundrels”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, August 9, 2016.
64“they couldn’t take”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 4, 2019.
64earned some $100,000: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, November 5, 2015.
64he took in cash: Eva Cox, interview with the author, November 10, 2016.
64“It was too painful”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 30, 2016.
64“Once you start”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, November 2, 2015.
65two to five years: Texas Penal Code § 1191 (1961).
65“The town went wild”: LaMerle Boyd, email to the author, October 24, 2016.
65“I believe in this”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
65“You’re sitting in”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, October 11, 2016.
65“I didn’t understand”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
66a newspaper ad: Eva Cox, interview with the author, October 11, 2016.
66“He used the word”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
66“how to draw blood”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
66“It’s all over”: Reminiscences of Dr. Curtis Boyd, 69.
67“Oops!”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
67to fight the sodomy: McCluskey was counselor of record in Buchanan v. Batchelor, 308 F. Supp. 729 (N.D. Tex. 1970).
68“Something real physical”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
68“I needed to participate”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
68“When I had to call”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
68“to do something fun”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
68“pretty chaste”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
69“women to control”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
69“I was beginning”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
69twenty-eight teens: “Dallas Senior Ready for New Zealand Trip,” Dallas Morning News, February 6, 1960.
69Ford Foundation grant: Kay Crosby, “The Law Clerks Are Girls,” Dallas Morning News, September 2, 1968.
69“failed a typing test”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
69“I sort of did it”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
69Human Rights Research Council: Crosby, “The Law Clerks Are Girls.”
69“the protection of individual”: HRCC ad, Austin American–Statesman, April 13, 1975.
70“My voice”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
70“Her tone changed”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
70“was most satisfactory”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
70“Oh, we’d only hire”: Diane Jennings, “Legal Eagle: The woman who helped make history with Roe,” Dallas Morning News, July 29, 1990.
70“Just overt discrimination”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
71“We didn’t have to have friends”: Barbara McCluskey Gouge, interview with the author, January 10, 2011.
71the young McCluskey: Barbara McCluskey Gouge, interview with the author, April 10, 2014.
71“that he was hoping”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
71“I wanted to get experience”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
71since 1860: Texas General Laws, 8th Session 1859-60, ch. 6, p. 97.
71binding in 1879: Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas (New York: Norton, 2012), 9.
72“You have the government”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
72“I wasn’t about to”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
72McCluskey had graduated: Program, memorial service for Henry McCluskey, July 12, 1973. Courtesy of Barbara McCluskey Gouge.
72“The clerk was desperate”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
72“I analyzed it right”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
72“somewhere between friendly”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
73“it seemed that”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
73“a live and let live”: UPI, “Texas Lawyer Makes Dent in Male-Dominated Jobs,” Wichita Eagle, February 11, 1972.
73“due process”: Linda Greenhouse explained that the “due process” clause calls for “specificity, so that a citizen can know precisely what is or is not within the law.” The California law, meantime, was unspecific, permitting abortions “necessary to preserve her life.” Linda Greenhouse, “Constitutional Question: Is There a Right to Abortion?,” New York Times, January 25, 1970.
73“I just thought”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
73“some important fundamental”: “Oral Memoirs of Linda Coffee,” Patricia Duke, interviewer, April 17, 1973, 6. Collection: Special Project: Roe v. Wade, Baylor University Institute for Oral History.
73Women for Change: “Oral Memoirs of Linda Coffee,” 22.
73“something that held women back”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
73“if a woman self-aborted”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
73Roy Lucas would file: “State Abortion Curb Challenged in Suit as a Violation of Rights,” New York Times, October 1, 1969.
74“I couldn’t figure out”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
PART III: ROE V. WADE
77“like she got out”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
77“she looked really pregnant”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
77estimates could be off: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 2, 2020.
77“We weren’t using”: Frank Bradley, interview with the author, May 27, 2020.
77only in Oregon: 1969 Oregon Senate Bill 193.
77and in California: California law mandated that “in no event shall the termination be approved after the 20th week of pregnancy.” Cal. Health & Safety Code 25953.
77law in DC: The case was United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971). The appellee was a doctor named Milan Vuitch. According to his son, a pathologist named Frank Vuitch who worked in his clinic a few years later in 1973, “in all likelihood, he did go beyond twenty weeks . . . I don’t think he had a cutoff.” He adds that his father had learned to do surgical abortions in Yugoslavia, where it was legal. Frank Vuitch, interview with the author, August 13, 2020.
78“It was my opinion”: “Oral Memoirs of Linda Coffee,” Patricia Duke, interviewer, April 17, 1973, 10. Collection: Special Project: Roe v. Wade, Baylor University Institute for Oral History.
78“There were fairly established”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
78“I remember saying”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
78“likely had no idea”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
78“I could tell she didn’t”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
78“It had to be”: Philip Brasher, “ ‘Roe still doesn’t rue her fight for abortion rights,” Chicago Tribune, January 22, 1983.
79a 1959 lawsuit: The case was Buxton v. Ullman. See David J. Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 154.
79“I considered her”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
79a group of women in Austin: Victoria Foe, interview with the author, September 24, 2020.
79“would open and aboveboard”: Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 393.
79“I have received”: Sarah Weddington, interview with Jeannette B. Cheek, March 12, 1976, 2. Schlesinger–Rockefeller Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, Smith College.
79Delta Gamma sorority: Weddington, interview with Cheek, 5.
80a clinic south of the border: It was not until 1992, with the writing of her memoir A Question of Choice (London: Penguin, 1993), that Weddington revealed she’d had an abortion.
80“could do whatever”: Weddington, interview with Cheek, 2.
80soloing in the church: Weddington, interview with Cheek, 2–3.
80“with research and secretarial”: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 50.
80she phoned Linda Coffee: Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 393.
80“Would you consider”: Linda Coffee, letter to Sarah Weddington, December 4, 1969. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
81all belly and blue jeans: This is the only scene in the book I was unable to satisfactorily verify. Norma, Coffee and Weddington all recalled at various times that the meeting took place as described here. But on September 23, 1971, Weddington wrote, in a letter to the abortion reformer Virginia Whitehill: “Meeting Jane Roe was fascinating.” It would thus seem that she had not first met Norma twenty months before at Columbo’s. In 1992, the historian David Garrow pressed Weddington on this point. Responded Weddington: “I can tell you what I remember. I can’t tell you what was true or not.” What I know to be true is that Norma honestly recalled meeting Weddington on this evening. (She recalled doing so as early as 1981 in conversation with the Dallas Times Herald.) If Norma did not meet her then, the conversation she recounted with Weddington took place at another time. Coffee had told Garrow that she wasn’t certain the lawyers met with Norma together before filing Roe, and that her recollection of a meeting at the restaurant was fuzzy. But asked about it in 2019 by the author Karen Blumenthal, she recalled it as described here. She added that it was Marsha and David King (soon to be Mary and John Doe) who suggested the restaurant, and that they were present too. Asked about the meeting in 2020, Marsha King said that she did not recall it. Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 862. Linda Coffee, interview with Karen Blumenthal, August 16, 2019. Courtesy of Karen Blumenthal. Kaki King, email to the author, December 18, 2020.
81“She was wholesome”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
81“I’m not saying”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
81“in desperate situations”: Victoria Foe, email to the author, June 14, 2020.
81“American [Airlines]”: Sarah Weddington, recorded interview with Luz Moreno-Lozano, Austin American–Statesman, June 16, 2019. Courtesy of Karen Blumenthal and Luz Moreno-Lozano.
82“solely for the benefit”: “ABA 2018 Edition Compendium of Professional Responsibility Rules and Standards,” ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility, Disciplinary Rule (DR) 5–101: “Refusing Employment When the Interests of the Lawyer May Impair His Independent Professional Judgment.” The Model Code was approved by the ABA House of Delegates on August 12, 1969. Rule 5–101 (A) reads: “Except with the consent of his client after full disclosure, a lawyer shall not accept employment if the exercise of his professional judgment on behalf of his client will be or reasonably may be affected by his own financial, business, property, or personal interests.”
82“the collective interests”: Kevin C. McMunigal, “Of Causes and Clients: Two Tales of Roe v. Wade,” Hastings Law Journal 47, no. 3 (1996): 811.
82An abortion in Mexico: Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 393.
82to see Swan Lake: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013. The performance, by the American Ballet Theater, was on February 21, 1970. Dallas Morning News, February 1, 1970.
83“the right to be let alone”: Thomas M. Cooley, Cooley on Torts, Or, A Treatise on the Law of Torts, 2nd ed (Chicago: Callaghan and Co., 1888), 29.
83Brandeis then championed: Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, “The Right to Privacy,” Harvard Law Review 4, no. 5 (December 15, 1890).
83“the most comprehensive”: Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (Justice Brandeis, dissenting).
83“the sacred precincts”: Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
83“penumbras”: Griswold v. Connecticut.
84“At that time”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
84Coffee described Roe: “Facts,” March 3, 1970, p. 11, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
84“You almost had to argue”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
84“Sarah didn’t want”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
85his phone number listed: Kim Wade, email to the author, June 21, 2016.
85seek thirty death sentences: Wolfgang Saxon, “Henry Wade, Prosecutor in National Spotlight, Dies at 86,” New York Times, March 2, 2001.
85his older brother: Kim Wade, email to the author, June 21, 2016.
85“My father was open-minded”: Kim Wade, interview with the author, January 22, 2015.
85“I don’t think”: Kim Wade, interview with the author, January 22, 2015.
85would confide in his son: Kim Wade, interview with the author, January 22, 2015.
85“was not anti-abortion”: Kim Wade, interview with the author, March 5, 2014.
86ought to have named: On May 22, 1970, during the Roe hearing in federal district court, a judge named Irving Goldberg raised this point to Coffee and Weddington. “We goofed,” acknowledged Weddington. The mistake would prove academic as the district court would eventually decline to grant an injunction against Wade even as it found the law unconstitutional. Moreover, the Texas attorney general, Crawford Martin, had his office take over the case from Wade.
86her suit would not end: Barbara Milbauer, The Law Giveth: Legal Aspects of the Abortion Controversy (New York: Atheneum, 1983), 12.
86“all other women”: Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint, April 16, 1970, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
86Its central claims: Affidavit of Jane Roe in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment, May 21, 1970, p. 56, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
87Judge John R. Brown: Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 436.
87“very much opposed”: John Tolle, interview with the author, June 17, 2016.
87“She thought she had”: John Tolle, interview with the author, June 28, 2016.
88“We knew that baby”: John Tolle, interview with the author, June 28, 2016.
88jurisdiction and standing: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
88the Dallas Morning News: Earl Golz, “Jurist Panel Rules Texas Abortion Law Void,” Dallas Morning News, June 18, 1970.
88“Quite a victory”: Martha Liebrum, “The Young Lawyers in the Abortion Battle,” Houston Post, June 23, 1970.
88Coffee petitioned the judges: “Judges Asked to Air Abortion Law Ruling,” Dallas Morning News, November 26, 1970.
88Coffee told the press: “Judges Asked to Air Abortion Law Ruling.”
896:51 a.m.: Shelley Thornton, email to the author, December 30, 2012.
89Coffee explained to Weddington: Linda Coffee, interview with Karen Blumenthal, August 16, 2019.
89“Never in a million years”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
89At least eight times: Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (New Haven: Yale Law School, 2012), 124.
89“the mother’s life”: “An Act to establish a code of law for the District of Columbia,” Section 809, approved March 3, 1901, amended in DC Code, Section 22–201.
89agreed to hear Roe: in No. 808 Roe et al. v. Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County, the Court issued an order on May 3, 1971, noting “probable jurisdiction postponed to hearing of case on the merits.” The proper citation for the order is 402 U.S. 941.
89Weddington exulted: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 90.
89Johnston v. Luna: Coffee filed Johnston v. Luna on December 17, 1971, and won the case on January 20, 1972. Earl Golz, “Filing Fee Law Voided,” Dallas Morning News, January 21, 1972.
89“They were embarrassed”: Peggy Clewis, interview with the author, September 13, 2016.
89“She was younger”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
90moot courts and mirrors: Weddington, interview with Cheek, 21.
90“Linda worked with me”: Weddington, interview with Cheek, 20.
90footing many bills: Bowers donated $10,000, Cabot $15,000. Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 500.
90“vehicles for presenting”: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 67.
90Lucas made clear: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 110.
90“The clients in a case”: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 110.
90“Sarah got in touch”: Norma McCorvey and Andy Meisler, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade, and Freedom of Choice (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 139.
90“respond in a personal way”: Weddington, interview with Cheek, 22.
90“She was rather attractive”: Betty Wells, interview with the author, August 13, 2019.
91“large blond hair”: Harry Blackmun, note, December 15, 1971, “No. 70–18–ATX,” HABP, Box 152, Folder 2.
91“Since I wasn’t arguing”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
91“elegant opinions”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
91that same amendment: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 104.
91“to determine the course”: Sarah Weddington, oral argument, December 13, 1971, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
91C+: Blackmun, “No. 70–18–ATX.”
91eighth in twelve months: From June 20, 1970, up to (but not including) December 13, 1971, sixteen women (Doris Bray, Eleanor Piel, Anna Lavin and Maria Marcus, Brenda Soloff, Malvine Nathanson, Doris Friedman Ulman, Elizabeth B. DuBois, Louise H. Renne, Mary Carol Los, Sybil H. Landau, Louise Korns, Elizabeth Roediger Rindskopf, Dorothy T. Beasley, Beatrice Rosenberg and Christine Y. Denson) presented a total of eighteen arguments at the Supreme Court. Marlene Trestman, “Women Advocates Before the Supreme Court, October Terms 1880 Through 1999,” table, Supreme Court Historical Society—History of Oral Advocacy, http://supremecourthistory.org/history_oral_advocates.html.
91“When a man argues”: Jay Floyd, oral argument, December 13, 1971, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
91“is no longer pregnant”: Floyd, oral argument, Roe v. Wade.
91“squarely built”: Blackmun wrote “sq, nice lookg.” His secretary Wanda Martinson, versed in his shorthand, guessed that “sq” stood for “squarely built.” Wanda Martinson, email to the author, September 7, 2016.
91five of the seven: Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 532.
92“I’d give my eyeteeth”: Nancy Blackmun, interview with the author, September 9, 2014.
92“Dad saw at close range”: Nancy Blackmun, eulogy for Harry A. Blackmun, March 9, 1999, https://www.c-span.org/video/?121702–1/justice-blackmun-memorial-service.
92“She was a single mom”: Nancy Blackmun, interview with the author, September 9, 2014.
92dropped out of school: Linda Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun (New York: Times Books, 2005), 76.
92“in the treatment”: Harry A. Blackmun, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of Harry A. Blackmun to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 1970.
92“a lawyer in Washington”: Harold Koh, eulogy for Harry A. Blackmun, March 9, 1999, https://www.c-span.org/video/?121702–1/justice-blackmun-memorial-service.
93Burger assigned both cases: “I suspect that about age five or six we were packed off to Sunday School by our respective mothers and that’s where we first learned to know each other.” The Justice Harry A. Blackmun Oral History Project, Harold H. Koh, interviewer, 49. HABP.
93“The insider speculation”: George Frampton, interview with the author, October 5, 2016.
93“Would your well-stocked library”: Harry A. Blackmun, letter to Thomas E. Keys, December 17, 1971. HABP, Box 152, Folder 2.
93“Apparently, we’re free”: Dave McNeely, “Wade to Continue Abortion Trials,” Dallas Morning News, June 19, 1970.
93“Don’t bet your safety”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 30, 2016.
93“A police car”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 30, 2016.
94One was New Mexico: Greenhouse and Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade, 121–22.
94to wear something red: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
95“he was meticulous”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
95perforated her uterus: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, August 9, 2016.
95“the women were gone”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
95Blackmun liked to work: John Rich (Justice Blackmun’s clerk), interview with the author, November 17, 2014. Wanda S. Martinson, Justice Blackmun’s secretary, interview with the author, November 28, 2014. Nancy Blackmun, interview with the author, November 29, 2014.
95“to throw some question”: Nancy Blackmun, interview with the author, September 9, 2014.
96“You people”: Nancy Blackmun, interview with the author, September 9, 2014.
96“insufficiently informative”: Harry A. Blackmun, cover letter to his fellow justices regarding Roe v. Wade, May 18, 1972. HABP, Box 151, Folder 3.
96“a first and tentative”: Blackmun, cover letter to his fellow justices.
96“a disposition”: William Brennan, note to Harry A. Blackmun, May 18, 1972. Potter Stewart Papers, MS 1367, Box 268, Folder 3194. Yale University Library.
96“The Roe case”: John Rich, interview with the author, September 16, 2015.
96about the Fifth: John Rich, “Communist Registration and the Fifth Amendment,” University of Florida Law Review 15, no. 435 (1962).
96a judge whose work: Judge David L. Bazelon served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
97bench memo: “Bench Memo: Roe v. Wade.” HABP, Box 151, Folder 9, 164437.
97another memo: The memo is numbered through page 13 but there are two pages numbered 11. Harry A. Blackmun, “No. 70–18—Roe v. Wade. Notes on Proposed Opinion.” HABP, Box 151, Folder 9, 165540.
97“requires only nutrition”: Greenhouse and Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade, 240.
97“to serve as an incubator”: Greenhouse and Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade, 234.
97far from the law: George Frampton, interview with the author, October 5, 2016.
97“nice, modest, sweet”: George Frampton, interview with the author, October 5, 2016.
97“You write the legal”: George Frampton, interview with the author, October 5, 2016.
98Blackmun was off: Blackmun biographer Melissa Nathanson found the dates of his drive in handwritten notations in his 1972 desk diary (July 21: “en route home”; July 22: “en route home”; July 23: “arrive Roch.”). HABP, Box 60, Folder 9.
98“the criminalization”: Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun, 92.
98“I didn’t want them”: George Frampton, interview with the author, October 5, 2016.
98“he took that”: George Frampton, interview with the author, October 5, 2016.
98“the decision to have”: The percentages of Republicans, Democrats and Catholics that agreed with that sentence were 68, 59 and 56 percent, respectively. George Gallup, “Abortion Seen Up To Woman, Doctor,” Washington Post, August 25, 1972.
98“intelligent, educated men”: Rena Pederson, “Woman’s Views,” El Dorado Times, February 7, 1972.
98“I could not bear”: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 91.
99charged with manslaughter: David Westin, “Citizen Lewis Powell,” Washington and Lee Law Review Online 72, no. 1 (2015).
99“The life of the law”: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law (Boston: Little, Brown, 1881), 1.
100Justice Tom Clark: Tom C. Clark, “Religion, Morality, and Abortion: A Constitutional Appraisal,” Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 2, no. 1 (1969). “Others . . . believe that abortion should be legal until the baby is viable, i.e., able to support itself outside the womb.”
100lawyer named Cyril Means: Means wrote that “after 24 weeks . . . more and more foetus become viable.” Cyril C. Means, Jr., “The Phoenix of Abortional Freedom: Is a Penumbral or Ninth-Amendment Right About to Arise from the Nineteenth-Century Legislative Ashes of a Fourteenth-Century Common-Law Liberty?,” New York Law Forum 17, no. 2 (1971): 390.
100“Viability seemed”: George Frampton, interview with the author, October 5, 2016.
100Jon O. Newman: Abele v. Markle, 351 F. Supp. 224 (1972). At least two other nations had previously connected viability to abortion law. In 1929, the Infant Life (Preservation) Act in England outlawed aborting “a child capable of being born alive.” And in 1935, Germany (under Nazi rule), amended its Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny to allow abortions on eugenic grounds until “the foetus is already capable of independent life.” See Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 140–41.
100“the ‘compelling’ point”: Harry A. Blackmun, opinion, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
100complimentary even in dissent: William Rehnquist, letter to Harry A. Blackmun, “Re: Abortion Cases: No. 70–18 – Roe v. Wade and No. 70–40 – Doe v. Bolton,” November 24, 1972. HABP, Box 151, Folder 4.
100“It will be”: Blackmun notepad. HABP, Box 151, folder 8: 171622.
101decrying abortion in a debate: Paul Harrington, letter to Mildred Jefferson, July 28, 1970. Rev. Paul V. Harrington Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Archdiocese of Boston archive. The folder is titled “Abortion, 1968–1970.”
101“Instead of simply rehashing”: Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 133.
1011.5 million copies: Greenhouse and Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade, 99.
102“the Catholic Bishops”: Paul Harrington, letter to Mildred Jefferson, July 28, 1970.
102“not so much ‘against abortion’ ”: Mildred Jefferson, letter to Paul Harrington, September 14, 1970. Rev. Paul V. Harrington Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Archdiocese of Boston archive.
102“their destruction”: Michael Shea, “Fetal Rights & Traditional Values,” The Heights 51, no. 13 (December 7, 1970): 11.
102“sought for economic”: “Value of Life Committee, Inc. brochure.” MJP, Box 15, Folder 6.
102“educated rhythm”: Judy Klemesrud, “Abortion in the Campaign: Methodist Surgeon Leads the Opposition,” New York Times, March 1, 1976.
102“presented women as victims”: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 150.
102“The woman who arranges”: Jefferson, “Abortion: Self-Defeat Solution,” 9.
102“Society’s efforts”: Jefferson, “Abortion: Self-Defeat Solution,” 9.
102“scientific evidence”: Jefferson, “Abortion: Self-Defeat Solution,” 8.
103“20–tooth smile”: Mildred Jefferson, memo to Nancy Southworth, NRSC, January 29, 1982. MJP, Box 19, Folder 2.
103“he had to accompany her”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, June 4, 2016.
103“singleness of purpose”: “Harvard Graduates First Negro Woman Doctor,” Boston Globe, June 22, 1951.
103“a black female”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 41. Interview with John J. Byrne, March 14, 1973.
103“refused to do so”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 67. Interview with Richard H. Egdahl, March 12, 1973.
103“I have found”: Otile McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight Against Abortion,” Boston Sunday Globe, December 3, 1976.
104“the essence and reasons”: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Jennifer Donnally, October 22, 2007. Interviews of Jennifer M. Donnally, 2007–2012, MC1059, Box 60, CD 6. Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
104“I believe that biology”: McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight.”
104“right-to-life organizations”: Mildred Jefferson, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, hearing on “Abortion,” August 21, 1974. 93rd Cong., 2nd sess.
104gained little traction: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 4.
105“We need to make”: On February, 24, 1969, Bush spoke in the U.S. House of Representatives regarding H.B. 4207. 91st Cong., 1st sess. Congressional Record 115, part 4, 4207.
105“No American woman”: Richard M. Nixon, “Special Message to the Congress on Problems of Population Growth,” July 18, 1969. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-problems-population-growth.
105Nixon would soon sign: Nixon enacted his plan through Title X of the Public Health Service Act.
105rich in political opportunity: Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel, “Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions About Backlash,” Yale Law Review 120 (2011): 2028. In the 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority (New York: Arlington House, 1969), Republican strategist Kevin P. Philips identified northern Catholics as a voting bloc ripe for picking.
105prompted by a memo: On March 24, 1971, Pat Buchanan suggested in a memo to Richard Nixon that he “publicly take his stand against abortion, as offensive to his own moral principles.” Cited in report of the U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Watergate Committee), June 27, 1974, p. 4150.
105“unwanted fertility”: John D. Rockefeller III, letter concerning the report of the Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, “Rockefeller Commission Report,” March 27, 1972.
105“Abortion on demand”: Richard Nixon, “Statement About Policy on Abortions at Military Base Hospitals in the United States,” April 3, 1971. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-about-policy-abortions-military-base-hospitals-the-united-states.
105defeat all twenty-five: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 2.
105judicial rulings legalized: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 195, and Daniel Williams, email to the author, August 12, 2016.
105church funded ads: John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: Norton, 2003), 277.
106“Right to life”: Greenhouse and Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade, 33.
106“to legislate”: Jefferson, “Abortion: Self-Defeat Solution,” 9.
106“the perfect, the privileged”: UPI, “Right to Life Committee Criticizes Abortion Ruling,” Sunday News (Ridgewood, NJ), March 11, 1973.
106“no snippets of autobiography”: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 172.
106“to get rid of the boy”: “Advocates, Should Women Be Permitted Abortion on Demand?” WGBH, December 14, 1972. Available at http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15–79v15v8h.
106“This makes a mush”: “Advocates; 311.”
107“The alternative”: “Advocates; 311.”
107“feels she simply cannot”: “Advocates; 311.”
107“Having a baby”: “Advocates; 311.”
107“Their impact”: Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality, 579.
107“I remember watching”: Philip Moran, interview with the author, September 7, 2017.
107the governor of California: The debate aired in Sacramento on December 14, 1972. Sacramento Bee, December 14, 1972 (TV listing).
107“humanitarian goals”: Korman, “Gov. Reagan To Sign New Abortion Bill.”
107Reagan had not thought: Seymour Korman, “Gov. Reagan To Sign New Abortion Bill,” Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1967.
108“I had to tell you”: Ronald Reagan, letter to Mildred Jefferson, January 17, 1973. Courtesy of National Right to Life Committee.
109“The abortion issue”: Harry A. Blackmun, statement. HABP, Box 151, Folder 3.
109“the deep and seemingly”: Blackmun, statement. HABP, Box 151, Folder 3.
109“embarrassment to my family”: Gloria Feldt and Laura Fraser, The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back (New York: Bantam, 2004), xvi.
110“the health of the pregnant woman”: Blackmun, statement, Box 151, Folder 3.
110participate in 3,874 rulings: Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun, xii.
110A team of printers: Supreme Court Historical Society, “De Minimus, or Judicial Potpourri,” Yearbook 1977, 96–98.
110“a major contribution”: “Respect for Privacy,” New York Times, January 24, 1973.
110“wise and sound”: “Abortion: Out of the 19th Century,” Washington Post, January 31, 1973.
110“struck a reasonable balance”: “Abortion and Privacy,” Wall Street Journal, January 26, 1973.
110“the right of a [public]”: Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905) (Justice Holmes, dissenting).
110“the counter-majoritarian”: Alexander M. Bickell, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 16.
111“from Congress and States”: Griswold v. Connecticut, 38 U.S. 479 (1965) (Justice Black, dissenting).
111“an exercise of raw”: Roe v. Wade (Justice White, dissenting).
111“Picketed!”: “Chronology of Significant Events” (handwritten lists for each Supreme Court term). HABP, Box 1548, Folder 4.
111“morally indistinguishable”: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 206, footnote.
111William Buckley: “Court Decides When Life Begins,” Omaha World–Herald, February 1, 1973.
111“for paganism”: “Abortion and the Court,” Christianity Today, February 16, 1973.
111“erroneous, unjust”: Administrative Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Pastoral Message on Abortion,” February 13, 1973.
111“Liebesleid”: The piece was written for violin by Friedrich Kreisler. Nancy Blackmun, eulogy for Harry A. Blackmun, March 9, 1999, https://www.c-span.org/video/?121702–1/justice-blackmun-memorial-service.
111eighty thousand letters: Feldt and Fraser, The War on Choice, xx.
111recalling decades later: U.S. Supreme Court 1995 oral history interview, the Justice Harry A. Blackmun Oral History Project, HABP.
111initially to void the Texas law: Harry A. Blackmun, cover letter to his fellow justices regarding Roe v. Wade, May 18, 1972. HABP, Box 151, Folder 4.
112“wise and courageous”: Lawrence Van Gelder, “Cardinals Shocked—Reaction Mixed,” New York Times, January 23, 1973.
112“this ruling will mean”: Roberta Brandes Gratz, “Never Again,” Ms., April 1973.
112“It’s all over”: Life Matters: The Story of an Illegal Abortionist, directed by Kyle Boyd, Grayscale, 2002. Available at: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lifematters/film.html.
112“we walked around”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, August 1, 2016.
112a doctor in Texas: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 185.
112the first legal clinic: Curtis Boyd, “The Morality of Abortion: The Making of a Feminist Physician,” St. Louis University Public Law Review 13, no. 1 (1993–94): 303–14.
112“Preachers were preaching”: Life Matters, film.
112“My commitment was”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 30, 2016.
112“He would not agree”: LaMerle Boyd, email to the author, July 30, 2016.
113The IRS made: Associated Press, “Cost of Abortions, Vasectomies and Pills Ruled Tax Deductible,” New York Times, April 11, 1973.
113insurance companies included: “Most Insurers Are Paying for Abortions,” American Medical News, March 26, 1973.
113thirty-four states: Christopher Tietze, “Provisional Estimates of Abortion Need & Services in the Year Following the 1973 Supreme Court Decisions: United States, each state and metropolitan area,” Guttmacher Institute, 1975, 88.
113745,000 women: “The Unmet Need for Abortion Services in the U.S.,” Family Planning Perspectives 7 (1975): 224–30.
113“to put a contract”: Mildred Jefferson, “For Life—Against Abortion,” Encore, March 1973.
113“photo-postcards”: Martha Hume, “Abortion in Texas,” Texas Monthly, March 1974.
113“an extermination complex”: Mildred Jefferson, “The Biology and Morality of Abortion,” February 4, 1973, 16. MJP, Box 22, Folder 11.
113“to provide abortion”: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, statement of the Committee for Pro-Life Affairs, January 24, 1973.
113“almost no public hospitals”: Lawrence Lader, letter to Alan Reitman, April 23, 1973, National Abortion Rights Action League. Records of the National Abortion Rights Action League 1968–1976, Carton 8. Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
113“human life amendments”: Rep. Lawrence J. Hogan (R–MD), January 30, 1973. The amendment resolved that the Fourteenth Amendment would protect the personhood of the fetus “from the moment of conception.”
113“there are no cases”: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 105.
114sixteen state legislatures: Planned Parenthood, “Could the Supreme Court Abortion Decisions Be Lost? Yes!,” April 1973. Wilda Scott Heide Papers, Box 11, Folder 12. Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
114“effectively redefined the movement”: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 215.
114carried representatives: Darla St. Martin (co-executive director of NRLC), interview with the author, September 27, 2016.
114NRLC elected Mildred: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Darla St. Martin. On June 8, 1973, Mildred is listed as the vice-chair of the NRLC board.
114wished to appoint her: The name of the board was the Board of Regents of the Armed Services Medical College.
114“all . . . comment favorably”: L. Patrick Gray III, letter to Alexander P. Butterfield, March 19, 1973. FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 80.
114“a superior woman”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 59. Interview with Sidney Farber, March 9, 1973.
114“possible resentment”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 59. Interview with Sidney Farber, March 9, 1973.
114“We will consider”: “30,000 at life rally in St. Louis.” National Right to Life News 1, no. 1 (November 1973): 2.
114“I am not willing”: Charlene Prost, “Thousands in March Against Abortion,” St. Louis Dispatch, October 22, 1973.
115An article she wrote: W. Kenneth Waller and Mildred F. Jefferson, “Prevention and repair of stricture of the extrahepatic bile ducts,” Surgical Clinics of North America 5, no. 5 (October 1973): 1169.
115abortion cases were pending: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 79.
115spoke first of LBJ: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 159.
115flooded her office with flowers: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 158–59.
115“who submitted the class”: Louise Cook, “Abortion Ruling Reaction Mixed,” Pittsburgh Post–Gazette, January 23, 1973.
115“I don’t particularly care”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
115“she was proud”: Robert O’Brien, interview with the author, October 20, 2016.
115“the emotional, mental and physical”: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Abortion,” June 1, 1971.
115she felt the law: Said Coffee: “I haven’t decided whether it’s possible to really protect the fetus or not . . . I do think that we don’t need any law in the second trimester.” “Oral Memoirs of Linda Coffee,” 11.
115“would have little personal sympathy”: Robert O’Brien, “Abortion Decision Leaves Moral Responsibility to Individual,” Baptist Standard, January 31, 1973. The article ran in slightly different form with slightly different quotes a few days prior in the Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
116“is essentially a matter”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
116did not have that faith: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
116supported Shirley Chisholm: UPI, “Texas Lawyer Makes Dent in Male-Dominated Jobs,” Wichita Eagle, February 11, 1972.
116Gonzalez, the manager: Notes of Joseph N. Bell. Courtesy of Bell’s widow, Sherry Angel. Over the years, Norma would tell and write a different story, namely that Connie had been working in that market when she spotted Norma shoplifting. But Norma’s first account of their meeting, told to Bell in 1973, was different. In his article for Good Housekeeping (“A Landmark Decision,” June 1973), Bell noted that days after Gonzales hired Norma, she calmed her down after three drunk men scared her at the register.
116“my little boy”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 24, 2017.
116their fifth surviving child: Consuela Gonzalez, certificate of birth, February 5, 1931, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Texas Department of Health.
117Father Antonio: Mary Helen Sandoval, interview with the author, October 14, 2016.
117never got pregnant again: Mary Helen Sandoval, interview with the author, October 14, 2016.
117“She was seen in public”: Mary Helen Sandoval, interview with the author, October 14, 2016.
117“I told her”: Consuela Gonzales, interview with the author, June 29, 2010.
117selling an underground newspaper: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker and other members of the Texas Justice Foundation, February 14, 2000. NMP.
117“mostly downers”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
117tried to kill herself: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
117“It was clean”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
118“I always felt”: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker et al.
118“rough as a cob”: Dan Matise, interview with the author, November 23, 2018.
118earned twenty dollars: Saundra Clark (building manager), interview with the author, November 21, 2018.
118“poison parties”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
118she was the plaintiff: Monika Maeckle, “The Double Life of Norma McCorvey,” Westwood Magazine (supplement of Dallas Times Herald), October 18, 1981. The next year, Norma told the Dallas Morning News that she learned of the Roe ruling from a newspaper delivered to her front door. Mimi Eckstein, “Plaintiff Has No Regrets,” Dallas Morning News, January 22, 1982.
118“It’s great to know”: The Baptist Press did not come out Saturday or Sunday, so O’Brien, wanting to get his story out immediately, shared his scoop with the Associated Press, which ran it on Saturday, January 27. The Baptist Press ran the story on Monday, January 29, a week after Roe. Robert O’Brien, interview with the author, November 21, 2018. Associated Press, “Abortion Reformer Sheds ‘Jane Roe,’ ” Dallas Morning News, January 27, 1973. Robert O’Brien, “Abortion Case Plaintiff Sheds ‘Jane Roe’ Identity,” Baptist Press, January 29, 1973.
118“It’s hard to determine”: Associated Press, “Abortion Reformer Sheds ‘Jane Roe.’ ”
119the Dallas Morning News: Associated Press, “Abortion Reformer Sheds ‘Jane Roe.’ ”
119The Blackmun opinion: Roe v. Wade, Section IV A: “Jane Roe. Despite the use of the pseudonym, no suggestion is made that Roe is a fictitious person. For purposes of her case, we accept as true, and as established, her existence; her pregnant state, as of the inception of her suit in March 1970 and as late as May 21 of that year when she filed an alias affidavit with the District Court; and her inability to obtain a legal abortion in Texas.”
119Jane Roe had delivered: Associated Press, “Abortion Plaintiff Had Baby,” Chicago Tribune, January 23, 1973.
119“to avert the possibility”: Associated Press, “Abortion Plaintiff Had Baby.”
119her red plastic datebook: Undated. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
119Norma lied: Joseph N. Bell, “A Landmark Decision,” Good Housekeeping, June 1973.
119wondering how many months: Rehnquist wrote: “a necessary predicate for such an opinion is a plaintiff who was in her first trimester of pregnancy at some time during the pendency of her law-suit.” In other words, for a suit to have merit, the plaintiff needed to file it during her first trimester. Norma filed her case in early March, at roughly the start of her third trimester.
120“illegitimate” child: Item number four mentions “the social stigma attached to the bearing of illegitimate children in our society.” Affidavit of Jane Roe in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment, May 21, 1970, p. 56, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
120“who looked ten feet tall”: Bell, “A Landmark Decision.”
120she had no idea: Bell, “A Landmark Decision.”
120“Neither Linda nor I”: Weddington, A Question of Choice, 273.
120two fishermen found her friend: “Extradition to Begin on Hovila,” Dallas Morning News, August 13, 1973.
120“salacious”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
120“a bachelor”: George Proctor, “ ‘State Has Right to Kill Me,’ Hovila Says in Death Penalty Murder Trial,” Dallas Morning News, February 22, 1974.
120the men had been lovers: Rob Wood, “Huntsville Death Row Inmate Wants to Die,” Eagle (Bryan, TX), May 24, 1978.
121149 clients: Barbara Gouge McCluskey, interview with the author, January 12, 2011.
PART IV: “THE RAW EDGES OF HUMAN EXISTENCE”
125“We already had adopted”: Donna Kebabjian, interview with the author, June 11, 2012.
125Ruth could not conceive: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
125“deadbeat, thin, narrow moustache”: Billy Thornton, interview with the author, October 9, 2013.
125“In that neighborhood”: Billy Thornton, interview with the author, April 9, 2013.
125the two of them ran off: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 7, 2013.
126“You ain’t never seen”: Billy Thornton, interview with the author, December 5, 2012.
126“felt it was important”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
126“dolls and books”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
126the little girl happy: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
127“You could never see”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, January 14, 2014.
127“I had tea parties”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
127Billy and Ruth married: Billy Thornton, interview with the author, October 9, 2013.
127“Everything was Shelley”: Billy Thornton, interview with the author, October 9, 2013.
127“they would split up”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
127“it was just”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 7, 2013.
127“I would go”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 14, 2013.
128“we had to lock”: Cindy McMinn, interview with the author, December 11, 2013.
128“hyperactive”: Cindy McMinn, interview with the author, December 11, 2013.
128“It was always mass destruction”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, February 13, 2013.
128“I was the favorite”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, February 13, 2013.
129“a ho”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 11, 2012.
129judged herself unkindly: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 17, 2012.
129“looked at females”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 17, 2012.
130“I was like, fuck you”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, October 25, 2013.
130“I think he tried”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, February 13, 2013.
130“I was hating life”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, February 13, 2013.
130so much older and detached: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 11, 2013.
130“we played under”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 24, 2015.
131“I always wanted”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 24, 2015.
131“Melissa was a happy”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 22, 2013.
131“We both cried”: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 22, 2013.
131“I would say”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 11, 2013.
132“I felt filthy”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 6, 2016.
132“I thought I was evil”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 10, 2012.
132“You have the genes!”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 28, 2013.
132report on drugs: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 6, 2016.
132“be in the history”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 28, 2013.
132“He looked just like”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 28, 2013.
133“Stabbed her”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 28, 2013.
133“He got us out”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 28, 2013.
133“I was with everybody”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 27, 2012.
133“hardship license”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 27, 2012.
134“Everything Norma stood for”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
134her grandmother reassured her: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 24, 2015.
135“I gave them a chance”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
135“Almost every day”: Lloyd Shearer, “This Woman and This Man Made History,” Parade, May 8, 1983.
135six hundred such women: The article reviewed the findings of twelve studies of a total of 625 women. Hollie A. Askren and Kathleen C. Bloom, “Postadoptive Reactions of the Relinquishing Mother: A Review,” Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing 28, no 4 (July/August 1999): 395–400.
135“Grief is an amputation”: David Mitchell, Slade House (New York: Random House, 2015).
135“My mother never taught”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, July 11, 2013.
136“That’s just the feeling”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
136“I loved having an affair”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
136“That’s all we had”: Andi Taylor, interview with the author, June 30, 2015.
136“She’s a lesbian”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 12, 2017.
136She told Milbauer: Milbauer interviewed Norma on September 20, 1980. Barbara Milbauer, The Law Giveth: Legal Aspects of the Abortion Controversy (New York: Atheneum, 1983), 330.
136the Dallas Times Herald: Monika Maeckle, “The Double Life of Norma McCorvey,” Westwood Magazine (supplement of Dallas Times Herald), October 18, 1981.
137Norma felt guilty: Debbie Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe,” Village Voice, April 30, 1996.
137“the problem of bringing”: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), Section VIII.
137“my law”: Lianne Hart, “Neighbors—in Name Only,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1995.
137“Freedom Lady”: George Howe Colt, “Save My Law,” Life, May 1989.
137first time to a meeting: Norma went to her first NOW meeting in Dallas in June 1981. Maeckle, “Double Life.”
137Norma began to volunteer: Maeckle, “Double Life.”
137“connected with regrets”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, December 13, 2016.
138“She needed to find”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, December 13, 2016.
138she told one journalist: Norma McCorvey, unpublished interview with Claudia Dreifus, July 7, 1984. Courtesy of David Garrow.
138“I like my version”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 24, 2015.
138“what I recall”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, December 13, 2016.
138the Dallas Morning News: James Dunlap, “Humanist, Idealist, Herb Croner Remembers 84973,” Dallas Morning News, October 28, 1975.
138Croner had been born: The facts of Croner’s life in Germany recounted here were assembled by the historians Christiane Jungblut and Gunhild Ohl-Hinz in a book about the victims of the Nazis in St. Pauli, a district in Hamburg. Stolpersteine in Hamburg–St. Pauli: biographische Spurensuche (Hamburg: Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 2009).
139a wisp of a man: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 7, 2019.
139“had not one free day”: Jungblut and Ohl-Hinz, Stolpersteine.
139telling the Pittsburgh Press: “Survivor of Horror Camps Seeks U.S. Citizenship,” Pittsburgh Press, June 27, 1946.
139He was not a Jew: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 22, 2019.
139a doctorate in philosophy: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 8, 2019.
139he was a counselor: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 7, 2019.
139“He didn’t have”: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 7, 2019.
139“just elsewhere”: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 7, 2019.
140a black newspaper: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 7, 2019.
140hospitalized after the second: Jungblut and Ohl-Hinz, Stolpersteine.
140“into account my feelings”: Herbert Croner, letter to Monica Maeckle, July 11, 1981. Courtesy of Marilyn Croner.
140“She’d call him”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, December 13, 2016.
140“strongest champions”: Molly Ivins, “Justice Lost a Champion with the Death of Herb Croner,” Dallas Times Herald, February 23, 1984.
140“Broken people find”: Jennie Hoskins, interview with the author, December 7, 2019.
140“She said she was Norma”: Patricia Pinkusiewicz, interview with the author, December 16, 2016.
141paid five dollars: Norma McCorvey, interview with Angela Bonavoglia, September 22, 1989. Courtesy of Angela Bonavoglia.
141Abortion Providers of America: Norma McCorvey, interview with Claudia Dreifus, July 7, 1984. Courtesy of David Garrow.
141“She had a name”: Norma McCorvey, interview with Angela Bonavoglia, September 22, 1989.
141interviewed in 1982: KXAS-TV (Fort Worth, TX), January 22, 1982, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc968710/. University of North Texas Libraries, Special Collections.
141she drank before them: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
141Norma was literally shaking: Ruth Friendly, interview with the author, January 26, 2017.
141“as an important person”: Norma McCorvey and Andy Meisler, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade, and Freedom of Choice (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 176.
141“who were out”: circa 1984. NMP.
141politics of birth control: Michael Manheim, email to the author, December 20, 2016.
141met movie stars: McCorvey and Meisler, I Am Roe, 177.
142“wishes to make”: John Alan Goren, letter to Linda Coffee, June 10, 1985. NMP.
142told the press: Rene Stutzman, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Still Faces Backlash from Landmark Abortion Battle,” UPI, September 29, 1985.
142sticker on the bumper: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
142“That’s what I call murder”: Undated. NMP.
142Weddington who rewrote the speech: Norma kept a copy of her speech with Weddington’s handwritten edits, dated July 27, 1989. NMP.
142“The nomination of Robert Bork”: Dan Shomon, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Calls Bork Nomination an Insult,” UPI, August 3, 1987.
142the journalist Carl Rowan: Kenneth B. Noble, “Key Abortion Plaintiff Now Denies She Was Raped,” New York Times, September 9, 1987.
142“A little bit of hell”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, June 2, 2012.
143“No fact was ever presented”: UPI, “Woman lied in key abortion case,” Record (Hackensack, NJ), September 9, 1987.
143The author Milbauer wrote: Milbauer, The Law Giveth, 35.
143she first became aware: Linda Coffee, interview with Karen Blumenthal, August 16, 2019. Karen Blumenthal, Jane Against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights (New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2020), 144.
143Norma, though, told Milbauer: Barbara Milbauer, interview with the author, January 10, 2021.
143“As a result of McCorvey’s lie”: Jack D. Nunn, “The Untold Story,” letter to the editor, Greensboro News & Record, October 8, 1987.
143“This false information”: Mary Ann French, “Setting Record Straight Is Hard but Necessary for ‘Jane Roe,’ ” St. Petersburg Times, September 12, 1987.
143“I was getting tired”: French, “Setting Record Straight.”
144The Supreme Court dissolved: David J. Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 608.
144Roe appeared as secure: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of John Paul Stevens to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 94th Cong., 1st sess., 1975.
145“I do not look”: Mildred Jefferson, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, hearing on “Abortion,” August 21, 1974. 93rd Cong., 2nd sess.
145she had no expertise: Kenneth C. Edelin, Broken Justice: A True Story of Race, Sex and Revenge in a Boston Courtroom (Martha’s Vineyard, MA: Pondview Press, 2007), 169–70.
145“definition of terms”: Edelin, Broken Justice.
145the ruling put it: Roe v. Wade, Section IX B: “Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.”
145technology would one day: In her dissent in the 1983 case City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, O’Connor wrote: “It is certainly reasonable to believe that fetal viability in the first trimester of pregnancy may be possible in the not too distant future. . . . The Roe framework, then, is clearly on a collision course with itself.”
145“without major morbidity”: B. J. Stoll, N. I. Hansen, E. F. Bell, et al., “Trends in Care Practices, Morbidity, and Mortality of Extremely Preterm Neonates, 1993–2012,” Journal of the American Medical Association 314, no. 10 (2015): 1048.
146“Once the placenta”: Edelin, Broken Justice, 178.
146“can exhort for an hour”: William P. Maloney, “The Owl in the Saguaro: Report to Officers and Board of Directors of the Right to Life Committee of New Mexico,” January 23, 1974. American Citizens Concerned for Life, Inc., Records, Box 7, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
146“inoculate himself”: Edelin, Broken Justice, 168.
146pledging to help the cause: Ronald Reagan, letter to Mildred Jefferson, February 15, 1973. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
146“social conservatives”: reprinted in Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (New Haven: Yale Law School, 2012), 215, 216.
146“The interrupting of pregnancy”: Alice Hartle, “Reagan Likes HLA, Gives Views on Abortion, Euthanasia,” National Right to Life News, December 1975, 1.
146“changed the partisan equation”: Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 232.
147“turning abortion into”: Judy Klemesrud, “Abortion in the Campaign: Methodist Surgeon Leads the Opposition,” New York Times, March 1, 1976.
147“enactment of a constitutional amendment”: “Women,” Republican Party platform, 1976. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1976.
147Never before had either political party: According to John T. Woolley, co-director of the American Presidency Project website at UC Santa Barbara, the Democratic platform first mentioned “family planning” in 1968. The libertarian platform mentioned “birth control” in 1972. John T. Woolley, email to the author, January 9, 2017.
147“undesirable”: “Civil and Political Rights,” Democratic Party platform, 1976. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1976-democratic-party-platform.
147would flip too: Daniel Williams, email to the author, January 26, 2017.
147“supported abortion on demand”: Otile McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight Against Abortion,” Boston Sunday Globe, December 3, 1976.
147“helped to polarize”: Jennifer Donnally, “The Politics of Abortion and the Rise of the New Right,” PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2013, 22.
147“party of life”: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 233 and 328, n. 75.
1472,800 chapters: Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 217.
147army of middle-income Americans: Klemesrud, “Abortion in the Campaign.”
148vendors servicing the NRLC: Philip Moran, interview with the author, February 22, 2016.
148“absolute refusal to bend”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, June 4, 2016.
148“I was unable”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
148“He’d call into the office”: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
148Mildred stayed at the L’Enfant Plaza: Philip Moran, interview with the author, March 13, 2017.
148“You know what”: Thea Rossi Barron, eulogy for Mildred Jefferson, November 26, 2010. Courtesy of Thea Rossi Barron.
148“the long, tiring work”: “NRLC President Takes Sen. Kennedy to Task,” National Right to Life News 2, no. 8 (August 1975): 1. Cited in Donnally, “The Politics of Abortion,” 130.
148leaders of the New Right: “Congressional Liaison Group Holds its Initial Meeting,” National Right to Life News 2, no. 10 (October 1975): 2.
149a matter of civil rights: Thea Rossi Barron, interview with the author, June 30, 2019.
149“the people we risked”: Thea Rossi Barron, interview with the author, June 30, 2019.
149“We kept tabs”: Thea Rossi Barron, interview with the author, June 30, 2019.
149“I stand before you”: “Convention Sidelights . . .,” National Right to Life News 3, no. 8 (August 1976): 6. Cited in Donnally, “The Politics of Abortion,” 167.
149congressman took Mildred’s hand: Donnally, “The Politics of Abortion,” 167.
149“informed, articulate”: Thea Rossi Barron, “Hyde Amendment Big Victory; Fight Goes On,” report, National Right to Life Committee, Inc., January 1977, 1.
149“as a matter of conscience”: Jesse Jackson, telegram to Thea Rossi Barron, September 6, 1977. Courtesy of Thea Rossi Barron.
149one in four women: S. K. Henshaw et al., Restrictions on Medicaid Funding for Abortions: A Literature Review (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2009).
149“to wring more”: William Robbins, “Abortion Foes Look to Ultimate Victory,” New York Times, June 19, 1977.
149conservative strategists began: The first was called National Pro-Life, a PAC founded in Illinois by a Dominican priest. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn, 233.
150Among them was a PAC: The PAC was called the Life Amendment Political Action Committee. Donnally, “The Politics of Abortion,” 220.
150did not oppose abortion absolutely: Since 1994, the Hyde amendment has contained three exceptions: allowing the use of federal dollars to end pregnancies that result from rape or incest as well as pregnancies endangering the life of the mother.
150“You can’t give the individual”: “A Fighter for Right to Life,” Ebony, April 1978.
150“no abortions, ever”: “A Fighter for Right to Life.”
150absolute opposition to abortion: They were Judie Brown, Nellie Gray and Margie Montgomery. Philip Moran, interview with the author, March 13, 2017, and Judie Brown, email to the author, March 26, 2017.
150blamed Mildred: Caroline Gerster, “We Sought to Bring Life,” National Right to Life News 7, no. 7 (June 16, 1980): 9.
150“No abortion-advocate’s attacks”: Mildred F. Jefferson, MD, “Lifelines from the President’s desk,” National Right to Life News 4, no. 3 (March 1977): 9.
150he headed a faction: Andrew H. Merton, Enemies of Choice: The Right-to-Life Movement and Its Threat to Abortion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982), 160. Philip Moran, interview with the author, March 13, 2017.
150“They had a concerted plan”: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
150one of her eight: Mildred Jefferson was joined in her votes by a doctor named Robert Krebsbach. “Shakeup Reported Among Leaders Of ‘Right-to-Life’ Movement,” Alexandria Daily Town Talk, April 22, 1978.
151“She got far too much”: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
151“opposes violence”: The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, PBS, March 21, 1978.
151“She went into”: Philip Moran, interview with the author, February 22, 2016.
151“In the heat of battle”: Mildred F. Jefferson, MD, “Lifelines from the President’s Desk,” National Right to Life News 4, no. 3 (March 1977): 9. Cited in Donnally, “The Politics of Abortion,” 219.
151“unbridled and unbossed”: Doug LeBlanc, “Jefferson Fighting for Rights of the Unborn,” Sunday Advocate (Baton Rouge), October 6, 1983.
151“a platform to accept”: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
151more than $250,000: Laurie Johnston, “Abortion Foes Gain Support as They Intensify Campaign,” New York Times, October 23, 1977.
151“It’s not me”: Johnston, “Abortion Foes Gain Support.”
152He sued: Mary Ziegler, Abortion in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 62.
152teamed up with Mildred: The Right to Life Crusade was incorporated on February 6, 1979.
152her mother, Gurthie, and husband, Shane: Robert Mears, “An Interview with Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson,” New England Correspondent clipping, 1984. MJP, Box 21, Folder 12.
152“very selfish”: Otile McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight Against Abortion,” Boston Sunday Globe, December 3, 1976.
152“violated the rights”: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
152Eight years had passed: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
152he had begun an affair: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, June 4, 2016.
152“a blow both personally”: Mears, “An Interview with Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson.”
152unable to conceive: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
152“that Christ was with me”: Mears, “An Interview with Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson.”
152“The things I’m saying”: Mears, “An Interview with Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson.”
153never discussed God: Shane Cunningham, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
153“genocide”: “A Fighter for Right to Life.”
153“extinction”: David Newton, “Speaker: Abortions Threaten Civilization,” Greensboro Daily News, November 13, 1977, B1.
153the annual total had doubled: “Number of Abortions by State of Occurrence 1973–2017,” graph, Guttmacher Institute, https://data.guttmacher.org/states/trend?state=US&topics=66&dataset=data.
153roughly three abortions: Of 100 pregnancies ending in abortion or live birth, 29.6% ended in abortion and 70.4% ended in birth. Rachel K. Jones and Kathryn Kooistra, “Abortion Incidence and Access to Services in the United States,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 43, no. 1 (March 2011): 43.
153a political scientist named Greg Adams: Greg D. Adams, “Abortion: Evidence of an Issue Evolution,” American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 3 (1997): 722.
153another decade: Adams, “Abortion: Evidence of an Issue Evolution,” 731.
153a trio of conservative strategists: The strategists were Richard Viguerie, Howard Phillips and Paul Weyrich. Michele McKeegan, Abortion Politics: Mutiny in the Ranks of the Right (New York: Free Press, 1992), 21.
153the Moral Majority: The official Moral Majority platform would be “pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-moral and pro-America.” Jerry Falwell, Strength for the Journey: An Autobiography (New York: Pocket, 1988), 363.
153“the connection between easy abortion”: William Willoughby, “The Easy Abortion Trend: Has Its Course Changed?,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), March 13, 1971.
153“encourage permissiveness”: White House Tapes, Old Executive Office, 407–018, January 23, 1973. Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library.
153“A girl doesn’t have to”: White House Tapes, Old Executive Office, 407–018.
154“The abortion issue”: Clarence Page, “How Abortion Helps the New Right,” Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1987.
154also opposed to welfare: McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight.”
154the proposed Equal Rights Amendment: Charles B. Fancher, Jr., “Much in Common but Worlds Apart,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 23, 1978.
154agreed with in principle: Mildred Jefferson, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, hearing on “Abortion,” August 21, 1974, p. 14. 93rd Cong., 2nd sess.
154confused and dehydrated: Anne Fox, interview with the author, February 23, 2016.
154dressed in navy wool crêpe: photo, https://www.reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/audiovisual/contactsheets/C256.jpg.
154a gathering of pro-lifers: The meeting with Ford and pro-life leaders was held on January 22, 1976. A White House memo five days later noted that Mildred Jefferson was “unable to attend.” Judie Brown, who was then director of public relations for the NRLC, recalled in an email on May 23, 2017, that Mildred missed the meeting owing to a speaking engagement. When, on September 24, 1976, Brown wrote the White House asking if the president would meet with Mildred, the president declined on the advice of associate counsel Bobbie Greene Kilberg, who warned that the NRLC argued for passage of a pro-life amendment. James Cannon Papers, Abortion (2), Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
154dedicated to world population: The board was the National Commission for the Observance of World Population Year 1974. Press release, July 11, 1974. Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library.
154“NOT EVER”: Richard Nixon Presidential Library, WHCF: Alphabetical Name File, Box 79, Folder Jefferson M, p. 64.
154“There was an electricity”: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
154“from 1970 through Reagan”: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
154“She was the architect”: Robyn Claridy and Susan Taft, “ET Native, Anti-Abortion Physician Dies,” Longview News–Journal, October 19, 2010.
154fight for civil rights: Richard S. Myers, “Pro-Life Litigation and the American Civil-Rights Tradition,” in Abortion and the Constitution: Reversing Roe v. Wade Through the Courts, edited by Dennis J. Horan, Edward R. Grant, and Paige C. Cunningham (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1987), 23–46.
155“an aging Ken doll”: James J. Drummey, “Mildred Jefferson: An Exclusive Interview with the Distinguished Boston Surgeon Who Has Thrown Her Hat in the Ring Against Ted Kennedy,” Review of the News 18, no. 11 (March 17, 1982).
155photo of herself and Reagan: “Woman Surgeon Will Seek GOP Run Against Kennedy,” Providence Journal–Bulletin, February 6, 1982.
155“the symbol”: Massachusetts Citizens for Life, letter to supporters, May 9, 1984. MJP, Box 6, Folder 10.
155“influential adversaries”: Mears, “An Interview with Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson.”
155“IT SHOULD NEVER”: Mildred Jefferson, undated note. MJP, Box 2, Folder 9.
155abortion and unwed mothers: The White House invited her on April 23, 1984, to a discussion with religious leaders titled “Alternatives to Abortion and Help for Unwed Mothers.”
155printed an essay: “Reagan Beginning to Get Top Billing in Christian Bookstores for Policies,” New York Times, September 28, 1984. The essay originally appeared in The Human Life Review.
155“with jaw set”: “Reagan Beginning to Get Top Billing.”
155“a champion of all”: “Reagan Beginning to Get Top Billing.”
156held a press conference titled: In 1984, the AUL held a conference by the same name. Three years later, it published the papers in a book. Dennis J. Horan and Edward R. Grant, Abortion and the Constitution: Reversing Roe v. Wade Through the Courts (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1987), xi.
156“a series of steps”: Horan and Grant, Abortion and the Constitution, 207.
156issuing a quartet of opinions: The four rulings were issued between 1977 and 1980: Maher v. Roe, Beal v. Doe, Poelker v. Doe, and Harris v. McRae.
156minor girls: Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976), and Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979).
156fetal remains: Planned Parenthood Assn. v. Ashcroft, 462 U.S. 476 (1983), City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, et al., 462 U.S. 416 (1983), and Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747 (1986).
156“dancing to the tune”: “National Affairs,” New York Times, July 4, 1976.
156spoken forty-nine times: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 1981.
156“wholly unjustifiable”: Robert Bork, testimony, U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on the Separation of Powers, hearing on the Human Life Bill (S.B. 158), June 1, 1981. 97th Cong., 1st sess.
156“Robert Bork’s America”: Congressional Record 133, part 14, 18519 (July 1, 1987). 100th Cong., 1st sess.
156divide along party lines: Adams, “Abortion: Evidence of an Issue Evolution.”
157Congressmen voted their party lines: Adams, “Abortion: Evidence of an Issue Evolution,” 724.
157The public was similarly divided: Adams, “Abortion: Evidence of an Issue Evolution,” 731.
157“both the marker”: Kristin Luker, “The War Between Women,” Family Planning Perspectives 16, no. 3 (March/April 1984): 105–10.
157majority of activists: Luker, “The War Between Women,” 106. Luker interviewed more than 200 women in California active on both sides of the abortion debate. Writes Luker: “More than 80 percent of those people identified in their communities as highly involved on either side of the abortion issue are women.”
157“Since the core issue”: Luker, “The War Between Women,” 110.
157Closed: 99 Ways: Joseph M. Scheidler, Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985), laid out all manner of attack from “sidewalk counseling” to “blitzes of abortion clinics.”
157bombed and set fire: National Abortion Federation, “Provider Security,” October 1982–October 1987, https://prochoice.org/our-work/provider-security/. Accessed November 28, 2020.
157“a domestic war”: “All Over but the Legislating,” New York Times, January 25, 1998.
158“Their fight legitimized”: Nina Totenberg, “Robert Bork’s Supreme Court Nomination ‘Changed Everything, Maybe Forever,’ ” All Things Considered, NPR, December 19, 2012.
158“The Bork fight”: Joe Nocera, “The Ugliness Started with Bork,” New York Times, October 21, 2011.
159“never wanted to make”: Shearer, “This Woman and This Man Made History.”
159design a framed print: Contract between Norma McCorvey and Tom Goff, Sarah McCallister and Gus Clemens, January 18, 1988. NMP.
159“my part was”: Sarah Gallagher, interview with the author, February 27, 2017.
160“We believed Norma”: Sarah Gallagher, interview with the author, February 27, 2017.
160“I think it’s accurate”: Gus Clemens, interview with the author, November 2, 2012.
160Holly Hunter visited Norma: Michelle Green and Lois Armstrong, “The Woman Behind Roe v. Wade,” People, May 22, 1989.
160nineteen rewrites: Bill Carter, “Television; Crafting ‘Roe v. Wade’: Tiptoeing on a Tightrope,” New York Times, May 14, 1989.
160three bullets pierced her home: Associated Press, “Gunshots Fired at Abortion Activist’s House,” New York Times, April 6, 1989.
160of shortchanging her: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
160FBI concluded the shot: Melissa Nathanson (Blackmun’s biographer), email to the author, November 22, 2016.
160“Someone was out”: Gloria Feldt and Laura Fraser, The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back (New York: Bantam, 2004), xx–xxi.
160“the incident was symbolic”: Associated Press, “Gunshots Fired at Abortion Activist’s House.”
160she never responded: FBI report, “UNSUB(S); NORMA NELSON MCCORVEY, aka Jane Roe—Victim,” May 10, 1989, file # DL 44A-10755.
161“Hello,” she said: George Howe Colt, “Save My Law,” Life, May 1989.
161“We don’t know”: Steven Waldman, “Attacking the Real ‘Jane Roe,’ ” Newsweek, April 17, 1989.
161“The movie is essentially”: NARAL, “Talking Points for May 15 House Parties,” May 5, 1989. Cited in William Saletan, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
161Famous attendees greeted: Colt, “Save My Law.”
161“she just came right up”: Sarah Gallagher, interview with the author, February 27, 2017.
161Allred knew firsthand: Laurie Winer, “The Avenger,” New York Times, June 18, 2010.
161“trotting her out”: Sue Reilly, “26 Years Later, ‘Roe’ a Celebrity,” Augusta Chronicle, April 30, 1989.
161“Women’s freedom”: Andrew Rosenthal, “Reporter’s Notebook; ‘Jane Roe’ Has Part in a Drama of High Emotion,” New York Times, April 9, 1989.
162“Say Versus rather than V”: The firm was called Ready for Media. NMP.
162“the Jane Roe Foundation”: Gloria Allred, press conference, NBC News, April 26, 1989.
162paid a hundred dollars a plate: Associated Press, “Celebrity Fund-Raiser Planned to Help Abortion Law Figure Jane Roe,” April 20, 1989. Reilly, “26 Years Later.”
162“How can somebody”: Deborah Hastings, “Jane Roe Fund-Raiser Profits Unaccounted For,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, October 4, 1989.
162“wouldn’t raise money”: Gloria Allred, interview with the author, December 12, 2012.
162“I never thought”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
163ascended the staircase: Philip Benham, press conference, NBC News, April 26, 1989.
163“it was beautiful”: Wrote Norma, “The Supreme Court today. It was beautiful.” Undated. NMP.
163“her career a long study”: Leslie Bennetts, “A Woman’s Choice,” Vanity Fair, September 1992.
163“I did have some real”: Amy Wilson, “Weddington v. History,” Orange County Register, January 13, 1998.
163been made to resign: Paul Taylor, “Weddington Resigns as Lobbyist for Texas,” Washington Post, April 18, 1985.
163the title of best college speaker: The National Association for Campus Activities named Weddington best college lecturer in 1990. Sarah Weddington, A Question of Choice (London: Penguin, 1993), 254.
163“My name is Sarah Weddington”: Sarah Weddington, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of Clarence Thomas, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., 1991.
163Weddington had had a co-counsel: Rick Johnston, interview with the author, September 14, 2016.
164the quiet counsel had contributed: Whitehill spoke of Coffee to the author Marian Faux for her 1988 book Roe v. Wade. She told me on March 5, 2014, that her doing so angered Weddington. “She fell out with me because I talked with Marian Faux. I told her that I also thought Linda had done a lot. [Weddington] thought she was Joan of Arc.”
164“Sarah’s the frosting”: Virginia Whitehill, interview with the author, March 5, 2014.
164“I mentioned to her”: Margaret Whitehill, interview with the author, January 15, 2016.
164“not a people person”: Peggy Clewis, interview with the author, September 13, 2016.
164“Delinquent Notice”: State Bar Registration Card, Linda Nellene Coffee – Bar Card #4483000. Courtesy of State Bar of Texas.
164becoming a judge: UPI, “Texas Lawyer Makes Dent in Male-Dominated Jobs,” Wichita Eagle, February 11, 1972.
164Coffee told stories: Martha Liebrum, “The Young Lawyers in the Abortion Battle,” Houston Post, June 23, 1970. Laura Allen, “ ‘Lady Lawyers’ Handle the Defense,” Dallas Morning News, July 13, 1975.
164she wore dresses: UPI, “Texas Lawyer Makes Dent in Male-Dominated Jobs.”
164spoke on a panel: “Discrimination Seminar Planned,” Plano Daily Star–Courier, April 16, 1974.
164a young girl who wished: Don Hancock, “Carrie Wants to Stay in Cub Scouts,” Denton Record–Chronicle, April 14, 1974.
165passed over because of her sex: Carter v. Shop Rite Foods, Inc., 463 F. Supp. 777 (N.D. Tex. 1977).
165Coffee worried about Roe: “Abortion—What goes on here?,” Dallas Times Herald, January 20, 1974. Julia Wallace, “Dallas Abortion: Unregulated but not unprofitable,” Dallas Times Herald, 1983. Ann Zimmerman, “Decade-old Abortion Case Still Debated,” Dallas Times Herald, January 22, 1983.
165confided to a student: “Oral Memoirs of Linda Coffee,” Patricia Duke, interviewer, April 17, 1973, 19. Collection: Special Project: Roe v. Wade, Baylor University Institute for Oral History. Said Coffee: “I know one of Sarah’s bills even provided that under the age of fourteen, the only consent required is the parents’ consent, and I really think I disagree with that.” The bill—Texas H. B. 148, 63rd R. S. (1973)—was not enacted. See https://lrl.texas.gov/LASDOCS/63R/HB148/HB148_63R.pdf.
165“no moral or theological”: Baptist Press, “Over Abortion Clinic,” May 5, 1976.
165the SBC joined them: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Abortion,” June 1, 1980.
165“fetal life”: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Abortion,” June 1, 1971.
165“developing human being”: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Abortion,” June 1, 1980.
165“a living individual”: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Abortion,” June 13, 1984.
165“deviant moral behavior”: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Homosexuality,” June 1, 1977.
165“I thought it was”: Linda Coffee, interview with Karen Blumenthal, August 16, 2019. Courtesy of Karen Blumenthal.
165“For a long time”: Linda Coffee, interview with Barbara Milbauer, September 19, 1980. Milbauer, The Law Giveth, 33.
166“LESBIAN SEEKS”: Personal ad, Dallas Observer, December 1–14, 1983. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
166Hartt leaned left: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
166“My idea of happiness”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
166“I did not use”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
166happy ones for the couple: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
166“I got people registered”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
167belt came off: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, December 16, 2013.
167$125 an hour: Maria McFadden, “The Norma McCorvey Story: Woe is Roe,” Human Life Review 20, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 27–39.
167“I remember feeling jealous”: Darwin Payne, Indomitable Sarah: The Life of Judge Sarah T. Hughes (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 2004), 401.
167‘I did the case’: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
167“Sarah came on real strong”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
167lawyers would each be paid: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
167indicted on charges of fraud: Michael Totty, “Federal Grand Jury Indicts Dallas Lawyer in Fraud Case,” Dallas Times Herald, April 5, 1989.
167faced five years: Bill Lodge, “Bankruptcy Lawyer, Ex-Partner Charged with Fraud,” Dallas Morning News, April 5, 1989.
167The indictment was big news: The headlines of the two articles read “Abortion-Case Figure’s Home Fired On” and “Federal Grand Jury Indicts Dallas Lawyer in Fraud Case.” Dallas Times Herald, April 5, 1989.
167“I spent about two weeks”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
167His name was Kim Wade: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
167Coffee would help: Kim Wade, interview with the author, March 5, 2014.
167“brilliant and very forthright”: Kim Wade, interview with the author, March 5, 2014.
168“She felt she’d not done”: Kim Wade, interview with the author, March 5, 2014.
169jumped 27 percent: Susan B. Hansen, “State Implementation of Supreme Court Decisions: Abortion Rates Since Roe v. Wade,” Journal of Politics 42 (1980): 378.
169illegal ones fell: Willard Cates, Jr., and Roger Rochat, “Illegal Abortions in the United States: 1972–1974,” Family Planning Perspectives 8, no. 2 (1976): 87.
169The number of deaths: Lisa M. Koonin, Jack C. Smith, Merrell Ramick and Clarice A. Green, “Abortion Surveillance – United States, 1992,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 45, no. SS-3 (May 3, 1996): 1–36.
169“an improvement”: Leslie Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 246.
169Roe had “disappeared”: Hannah Smothers, “What It Was Like to Perform Abortions Before Roe v. Wade,” Cosmopolitan, November 2, 2016.
170that he add “M.D.”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
170“They thought, oh”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
170“hard and closed”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
170“a greater serenity”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
170“in low gentle tones”: Eva Cox, interview with the author, September 5, 2016.
170“My friends and their mothers”: Glenna Boyd, email to the author, April 16, 2017.
171hesitated to approve him: Eva Cox, interview with the author, September 5, 2016.
171“emotionally exhausted”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
171“I was trying”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, March 7, 2017.
171the number of hospitals: “Number of Abortion Providers 1973–2017,” graph, Guttmacher Institute, https://data.guttmacher.org/states/trend?state=US&topics=66&dataset=data.
172“Just because it’s legal”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 3, 2017.
172“take a little more risk”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
172“It was just a matter”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 3, 2017.
172doctors in Scotland: Barbara Rubin, “Laminaria Digitata: A Checkered Career,” Economic Botany 31, no. 1 (1977): 66–71.
172“to disarticulate the fetus”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 3, 2017.
173“I began to identify”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
173“It was a horrible experience”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
173“murderer”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
173human life amendment died: The amendment, SJR 3, sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch and Thomas Eagleton, fell seventeen votes short of the required two-thirds majority and was defeated in the Senate 49–50 on June 28, 1983.
173Reagan remained vigorously pro-life: On July 30, 1987, Reagan announced that family planning clinics which “provide counseling and referral for abortion services” would not receive federal funds.
174withholding federal funds: On June 17, 1984, Reagan announced the “Mexico City policy,” which withheld U.S. funding from nongovernmental organizations that “perform or actively promote abortion.”
174some $150,000: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 23, 2019.
174“I’ll campaign for you”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, March 7, 2017.
174“The service has to speak”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, March 7, 2017.
174“Surviving a Holy War”: G. J. Halvorson Boyd, “Surviving a Holy War: How health care workers in U.S. abortion facilities are coping with antiabortion harassment,” PhD diss., Fielding Institute, 1990.
174sending a letter of blessing: The mother and daughter were named Ruby Menard and Kathren Simmons. Susan Schneider, “The War on Sex,” Mademoiselle, April 1986.
175one in three performed: “Abortion, Harassment and RU 486,” editorial, New York Times, January 10, 1990.
175steady at 1.58 million: “Number of Abortions, U.S. vs Alabama 1973–2017,” graph, Guttmacher Institute, https://data.guttmacher.org/states/trend?state=US+AL&topics=66&dataset=data.
175the declines would continue: “Number of Abortion Providers 1973–2017,” graph, Guttmacher Institute, https://data.guttmacher.org/states/trend?state=US&topics=71&dataset=data.
175a handwritten death threat: Karen Tumulty, “Clinics Avoided; Abortion: Few Doctors at the Front,” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1989.
175nearly 24 million abortions: Guttmacher Institute data on the annual number of abortions from Roe through the 1980s is missing three years: 1983, 1986 and 1989. Not counting those years, the sum total of abortions is 19,101,360. Including the estimates for those years, the sum total of abortions from 1973 to 1989 is 23.8 million.
175“abortion restrictions”: Ellen R. Wiebe, Lisa Littman, Janusz Kaczorowski and Erin L. Moshier, “Misperceptions About the Risks of Abortion in Women Presenting for Abortion,” Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada 36, no. 3 (March 2014): 223–30.
175“voiced anti-choice attitudes”: E. R. Wiebe, K. J. Trouton, S. L. Fielding, J. Klippenstein and A. Henderson, “Anti-Choice Attitudes to Abortion in Women Presenting for Medical Abortions,” Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada 27, no. 59 (2005): 63.
175“in all or most cases”: R. G. Thomas, A. Norris and M. F. Gallo, “Anti-Legal Attitude toward Abortion among Abortion Patients in the United States,” Contraception 96 (2017): 357–64.
175intentional killing: Interviewed on KVUE on November 6, 2009, Curtis Boyd said: “Am I killing? Yes, I am. I know that.”
176have a right to know: Rule 10a of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states: “The title of [a] complaint must name all the parties.”
176grant a plaintiff pseudonymity: The case, Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961), concerned women in Connecticut who sought contraception to avoid a medical threat posed by pregnancy. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, in the 1959 case Buxton v. Ullman, 147 Conn. 48 (1959), granted them pseudonymity owing to “the intimate and distressing details” of their suit, and the Supreme Court extended the courtesy owing to “the special circumstances” of the case.
176“irrelevant”: “Our Bodies, Our Law – Q and A with Vicki Quade,” Barrister 13 (Summer 1986).
176Weddington would later confide: From Danger to Dignity: The Fight for Safe Abortion, film, directed by Dorothy Fadiman, KTEH, 1995.
176“to explain”: Wilson, “Weddington v. History.”
176one in every 2.3 women: Stanley K. Henshaw, “Unintended Pregnancy in the United States,” Family Planning Perspectives 30, no. 1 (January/February 1998): 28. Data from three cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth.
176“contact theory”: Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1954).
176“see how elastic”: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (London: Richard Bentley, 1851), ch. XI.
1772,887 women recalled: Sarah E. Burns, “2,887 Women Who Have Had Abortions et al.,” Brief as Amicus Curiae, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989).
177“to take responsibility”: Adrienne Rich, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966–1978 (New York: Norton, 1995), 260.
PART V: UNDUE BURDEN
181“When someone’s pregnant”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, July 8, 2016.
181“Everything I learned”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, July 8, 2016.
182“was so not Texas”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 7, 2013.
182“I could rock”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 28, 2019.
182around “everything”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
182“sleepy and sad”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 7, 2013.
183“blindsided”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 7, 2013.
183“She was the one”: Todd Peterson, interview with the author, March 5, 2019.
183“I started drinking”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, February 13, 2013.
184“mature enough to deal”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 17, 2012.
184it was “scary”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, August 31, 2017.
184“My mom”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, February 13, 2013.
184her adoption records: Cindy McMinn, interview with the author, December 11, 2013.
185“I was nothing”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 17, 2012.
185“cold-cocked me”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 27, 2013.
186pick her grandmother up from jail: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, August 1, 2019.
186shout aloud: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, October 27, 2013.
186“There was a mom”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 23, 2016.
186“Where are you from”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 15, 2013.
187“Reminded me of Norma”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, July 31, 2017.
187“Watching all the sex”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 23, 2014.
187“I always wanted”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 25, 2015.
187“Why don’t you leave”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
188drew her a bath: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
188“He was always”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
188“It raised my endorphins”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
188“freak out”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 23, 2014.
188“Everything Norma stood for”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
188“Norma gave everybody up”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
189“I don’t know nothing”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 31, 2013.
190outside the small cabin: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
190“a lesbian who was raped”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 12, 2017.
190“I’m gay”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
191“Without a blink”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
191“there was more”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, August 2, 2017.
191“little hippie”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, August 2, 2017.
191“Pixie could not handle”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
191“They saved my life”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 12, 2017.
192“See you whenever”: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell. Courtesy of Bell’s widow, Sherry Angel.
192“She was not happy”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, May 25, 2017.
192“a vast educational difference”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
192“We were trying to find”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 15, 2017.
193“It wouldn’t have occurred”: John Rich, interview with the author, September 16, 2015.
193“unwilling mother”: Barbara Milbauer, The Law Giveth: Legal Aspects of the Abortion Controversy (New York: Atheneum, 1983), 14.
193“of its singular place”: Milbauer, The Law Giveth, 14.
193“I would much rather”: Rene Stutzman, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Still Faces Backlash from Landmark Abortion Battle,” UPI, September 29, 1985.
193“wondering is my son”: Steven Waldman, “Attacking the Real ‘Jane Roe,’ ” Newsweek, April 17, 1989.
193Jane Pauley asked her why: Today, NBC, April 25, 1989.
193“What this is all about”: Today, NBC, April 25, 1989.
194to suicide: Jeffrey Hanft, interview with the author, January 14, 2021.
194“they had torn underwear”: Jeffrey Hanft, interview with the author, September 5, 2017.
194“a cold reunion”: Jonah Hanft, interview with the author, December 10, 2013.
194“Her big thing”: Jonah Hanft, interview with the author, December 10, 2013.
194“It was almost underworld”: Jonah Hanft, interview with the author, December 10, 2013.
194found more than six hundred: Valerie Richardson, “Child of ‘Jane Roe’ Identified in Seattle,” Washington Times, June 29, 1989.
194“the National Enquirer”: Richardson, “Child of ‘Jane Roe’ Identified.”
195She opposed abortion: Richardson, “Child of ‘Jane Roe’ Identified.”
195“This was the one thing”: Jonah Hanft, interview with the author, December 10, 2013.
195thirty-seven girls born: 1970 Summary Birth Index. Texas Department of State Health Services, Vital Statistics Unit.
195“Oh my God!”: Jonah Hanft, interview with the author, December 10, 2013.
195she flew north: Ruth Ann Price’s notes on conversation with Toby Hanft. Courtesy of Shelley Thornton.
195Wow!: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
195“her mother was famous”: Rochelle Sharpe, “Search May Have Found ‘Roe’ Child,” Burlington [VT] Free Press, June 26, 1989, 4a.
195“connected to a national case”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
196a pioneering pathologist: Reginald Heber Fitz, 1843–1913.
196he took a job: Julie Yamamoto, “No Apologies for Checkbook Journalism,” Unity News, July 29, 1994.
196“Even at his funeral”: Joan Hart, interview with the author, December 28, 2014.
196Norma had appeared in Star: Anne Eaton, “Mom in Abortion Case Still Longs for Child She Tried to Get Rid Of,” Star, April 25, 1989.
196“I want to find out”: Michelle Green and Lois Armstrong, “The Woman Behind Roe v. Wade,” People, May 22, 1989.
196“We don’t believe”: Sharpe, “Search May Have Found ‘Roe’ Child.”
196“Unfortunately”: Sharpe, “Search May Have Found ‘Roe’ Child.”
196“I was very upset”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, January 14, 2014.
197“She looked at it”: Sharpe, “Search May Have Found ‘Roe’ Child.”
197“My mom”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
197“They kept asking me”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 30, 2012.
197“All I wanted to do”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 30, 2012.
197“pro-life”: Sharpe, “Search May Have Found ‘Roe’ Child.”
197“We left the restaurant”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 30, 2012.
197“Here’s my chance”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
198“What is she going to say”: Lisa Belkin, “Woman Behind the Symbols in Abortion Debate,” New York Times, May 9, 1989.
198“I knew I couldn’t”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
198“would love to show”: Christie Chavez’s notes on conversation with Toby Hanft. Courtesy of Shelley Thornton.
199“begged and pleaded”: Ruth Ann Price, interview with the author, February 21, 2011.
199“the race was on”: Courtesy of Shelley Thornton.
199“What a life”: Courtesy of Shelley Thornton.
199“I’d look down”: Norma McCorvey, unpublished interview with Claudia Dreifus, July 7, 1984. Courtesy of David Garrow.
199Shelley wrote a list: Courtesy of Shelley Thornton.
199“to tuck her away”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
199“My darling be re-assured”: Undated. Courtesy of Norma McCorvey.
200“in conjunction”: Christie Chavez, notes on conversation with Toby Hanft. Courtesy of Shelley Thornton.
200“Thanks to the National Enquirer”: “Roe/McCorvey Story exclusive to the National Enquirer.” Prepared statement, undated, never printed. Courtesy of Norma McCorvey.
200its scoop on the cover: Reginald Fitz and Steve Grenard, “Roe vs. Wade Abortion Shocker—Enquirer Finds Jane Roe’s Baby,” National Enquirer, June 20, 1989.
200“I’m glad to know”: Fitz and Grenard, “Roe vs. Wade Abortion Shocker.”
200“This nineteen-year-old”: Richardson, “Child of ‘Jane Roe’ Identified.”
200had not tested her DNA: Richardson, “Child of ‘Jane Roe’ Identified.”
202“a chill wind blows”: Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989) (Justice Blackmun, concurring/dissenting).
202“a triumph”: Mildred Jefferson, “Statement on U.S. Supreme Court’s ‘Webster’ Decision by Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson,” press release, July 24, 1989. MJP, Box 10, Folder 9.
202“it was a legacy”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
203“the Rosa Parks”: William J. Choyke, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Looks for Child She Tried to Abort in 1970,” Anniston Star, April 27, 1989.
203“I thought, wow”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 15, 2017.
203“I would say, ‘Look, Pixie”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 15, 2017.
203copied out a poem: The name of the poem was “Because We’re Women.” A History of International Women’s Day in Words and Images (Pennington, Australia: IWD Press, 1985), 46–51. NMP.
203“all women today”: NMP.
203had a senator telephone: The Senator was Diane Watson. Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 15, 2017.
203“Gloria was asking”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
204“I feel we were a bit”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
204“an opportunity to get”: NARAL, “Talking Points for May 15 House Parties,” May 5, 1989, as cited in William Saletan, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 80.
204resigned her job: Alyssa Lenhoff-Briggs, interview with the author, July 24, 2017. Alyssa Lenhoff, “Hearts Belong to Dad,” Contra Costa Times, June 18, 1989.
204“There was pressure”: Alyssa Lenhoff-Briggs, interview with the author, July 24, 2017.
204“a decades-long project”: Jia Tolentino, “A Woman’s Work,” New Yorker, October 2, 2017.
204the reason her client had struggled: NBC Universal Archives, April 26, 1989, SN17C9249–004–89WA6393_1.
204Lenhoff let her stay: Alyssa Lenhoff-Briggs, interview with the author, July 24, 2017.
204“circular conversations”: Alyssa Lenhoff-Briggs, interview with the author, July 24, 2017.
205told Norma she was done: Alyssa Lenhoff-Briggs, interview with the author, July 24, 2017.
205who’d fought for decades: Martin and Lyon began their activism in 1955 when they founded the Daughters of Bilitis, an organization that fought for the rights of lesbians.
205prominent lesbian lawyer: In 1977, Hitchens founded the Lesbian Rights Project, a legal body later renamed the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
205three strong gay women: Letter from Donna Hitchens to Norma McCorvey, Judith Hower, Del Martin and Susan Kennedy, November 16, 1989. NMP.
205“I couldn’t believe”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
205“There was no note”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 14, 2017.
206inscribed to her with everlasting: Photo courtesy of Judith Hower.
206a student of marine biology: Joseph N. Bell, “Jane Roe Settles into New Life of Her Own,” Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1990.
206the women talking: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
206“radicalized” her: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
207“It was hilarious”: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
207“I do not promote”: Angela Dash, “Pro-Abortion Rally Draws 400 to Gym,” Laney Tower 27, no. 9 (February 1, 1990): 1.
207“It was phenomenal”: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
207seeking her endorsement: Pat Keeble, “Feminist Heroine of ‘Roe’ Case Enters East Bay Politics,” Contra Costa Times, July 14, 1990.
207saw her own face: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
207Oprah Winfrey flew the women: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018. The show was filmed on January 14, 1991.
208a job making lattes: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, August 14, 2018.
208after Norma propositioned: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
208leaving nothing behind: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018. Joseph N. Bell, who wrote about Norma in 1990 for the Los Angeles Times (having profiled her in 1973 for Good Housekeeping), did not mention in his article her breakup with Bragg (whom he called Diane). But he did so in his notes. Courtesy of Bell’s widow, Sherry Angel.
208“barely acknowledged”: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
208“became complacent”: Kevin Fagan, “Abortion Rights Leader Returns to Texas,” Oakland Tribune, June 23, 1991.
208“They seriously shunned”: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
208“high status”: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
208to stand beside Norma: S. J. Diamond, “Where Are They Now?: A drifter, a deadbeat and an intensely private doctor,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1992.
209“polish that old diamond”: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
209“I LIKE / LOVE HER”: Norma’s datebook, June 24, 1989. NMP.
209its list of donors: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
209“on a butcher table”: Joni James, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Steps Out of Shadow,” Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), May 5, 1991.
209“also was at the conference”: James, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Steps Out of Shadow.”
209“hard to go”: James, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Steps Out of Shadow.”
209“It was sudden”: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
209lapis to ground: Kathleen Donnelly, “The Real Roe,” Miami Herald, July 2, 1994.
210“The fact is”: Matt Zoller Seitz, “Rough Roe,” Dallas Observer, August 15, 1991.
210soon had a 900 number: Seitz, “Rough Roe.”
210Dr. Robinson paid her bills: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
210“I’m really not”: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
210“She doesn’t need”: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
210“to get off their”: Jessie Mangaliman, “ ‘Roe’: It’s Time to Act,” New York Newsday, July 1, 1992.
210wasn’t able even to pay: Norma McCorvey, letter to Donna Hitchens, December 10, 1991. NMP.
210“he found out he couldn’t”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
211“unfairness in the world”: Janie Bush, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
211“was messing with her”: Janie Bush, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
211to the juvie officer: Janie Bush, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
211“the temperament”: Janie Bush, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
211“Norma wanted to be”: Janie Bush, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
211“her accidental place”: Janie Bush, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
211she had been patronized: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
212lines of cocaine: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
212Norma got half: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
212“It all sounded plausible”: Andy Meisler, interview with the author, November 14, 2012.
212“Of my many sorrows”: Norma McCorvey and Andy Meisler, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade, and Freedom of Choice (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 3.
212“that she loves me”: Fitz and Grenard, “Roe vs. Wade Abortion Shocker.”
212the pretty girl in the photograph: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
212“As long as I had”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 7, 2013.
213“he didn’t like”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
213“He was just like”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
213“I have no feelings”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
213“of American history”: Audrey Lavin, letter to Shelley Thornton, February 12, 1990. Courtesy of Shelley Thornton.
213“It was like, oh God!”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
213“had us freaking scared”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
214“not at all”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
214“I guess I don’t”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, January 14, 2014.
214“a bunch of religious fanatics”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, January 14, 2014.
214“There wasn’t any choice”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
214“Yeah, we’re really great”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
215“He was like a god”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
215“We were penny-poor”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
216“Dear Cheryl”: Letter from Shelley Thornton to Melissa Mills, September 1, 1993. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
216“I want to be with you”: Letter from Shelley Thornton to Melissa Mills, September 17, 1993. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
216“She had the love”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
217“She’s admitting”: Letter from Shelley Thornton to Melissa Mills, September 28, 1993. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
217“was all in my head”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
217“he looked disappointed”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
217“a marriage, a family”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
218“You need to submit”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
218were Doug to cheat: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 28, 2014.
218“other family”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 30, 2012.
218a watershed study: Corinne H. Rocca, Katrina Kimport, Sarah C. M. Roberts, Heather Gould, John Neuhaus and Diana G. Foster, “Decision Rightness and Emotional Responses to Abortion in the United States: A Longitudinal Study,” PLOS One, July 8, 2015.
218“increased risk”: Henry P. David, “Born Unwanted: Mental Health Costs and Consequences,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 81, no. 2 (2011): 184–92.
218spoken to one reporter: Norma McCorvey, unpublished interview with Claudia Dreifus, July 7, 1984. Courtesy of David Garrow.
219“How could you possibly”: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
219“discreet”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
219“How am I going to explain”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
219“I was like, what?!”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 18, 2012.
219“I told her I would never”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
219“Norma gave me up”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
219to work at Planned Parenthood: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 16, 2013.
219“I told Melissa”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
219“She’s still my mom”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
219“I was shocked”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
220“I love you”: Letter from Shelley Thornton to Melissa Mills, May 28, 1994. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
220“I wanted the baby”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 19, 2018.
220“I followed everything”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 7, 2013.
221“throwing up”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 7, 2013.
221“I’m a lesbian”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 5, 2014.
222“You’re what?!”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 5, 2014.
222nicknamed her “bitch”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 5, 2014.
222“I was always the bad”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 5, 2014.
222“if there was anybody”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 5, 2014.
222“Homosexuals, in my opinion”: Letter, May 20, 1994. NMP.
222Norma wrote her a note: circa 1994. NMP.
222“a compelling exploration”: Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1994.
223“Norma McCorvey’s powerful account”: “Notable Books of the Year,” New York Times, December 4, 1994.
223“It was a pack”: Judith Hower, interview with the author, March 12, 2017.
223had sought to abort her: McCorvey and Meisler, I Am Roe, 104.
223“Why didn’t my mother”: circa 1993. NMP.
224asked her former counsel: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
224“I wanted to make sure”: Kim Wade, interview with the author, March 5, 2014.
224“Some of the jurors”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
224taken no classes: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell.
224acquitted her: The judge issued a Rule 29 judgement of acquittal. Lee Hancock, “2 Lawyers Cleared of Fraud,” Dallas Morning News, August 16, 1989.
224“was just gone”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
225“It was a travesty”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
225“She became less”: Peggy Clewis, interview with the author, September 13, 2016.
225“She didn’t want to see”: Virginia Whitehill, interview with the author, March 5, 2014.
225“she looked tore-up”: Kent Frank Brooks, interview with the author, February 20, 2018.
225“she was muttering”: Kent Frank Brooks, interview with the author, February 20, 2018.
225American public disapproved: Geoffrey Stone, Sex and the Constitution (New York: Liveright, 2017), 394.
226“appears to have provoked”: Ruth B. Ginsburg, “Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade,” University of North Carolina Law Review 63, no. 2 (1985): 375.
226“halted a political process”: Ruth B. Ginsburg, Madison Lecture, NYU School of Law, March 9, 1993.
226“set off a cycle”: David Brooks, “Roe’s Birth, and Death,” New York Times, April 21, 2005.
226“extremely strict”: John Rich, interview with the author, September 6, 2015.
226“liberalization efforts”: Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel, “Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions About Backlash,” Yale Law Review 120 (2011): n. 169.
226“Political realignment”: Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel, “Backlash to the Future? From Roe to Perry,” UCLA Law Review 60, Discourse 240 (2013).
226“nationalized the anti-abortion”: News Service, “Abortion: The Battle Lines are Drawn,” St. Louis Review, February 9, 1973.
226“Roe was wrongly”: Al Kamen, “White House Asks Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade,” Washington Post, October 14, 1989.
227“the pristine exemplar”: O. Carter Snead, What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020), 106.
227“a domestic war”: David Garrow, “All Over but the Legislating,” New York Times, January 25, 1998.
227“a holy war”: G. J. Halvorson Boyd, “Surviving a Holy War: How health care workers in U.S. abortion facilities are coping with antiabortion harassment,” PhD diss., Fielding Institute, 1990.
227“an emotional”: Roger Rosenblatt, “How to End the Abortion War,” New York Times Magazine, January 19, 1992.
227“hating the idea”: Anna Quindlen, “Hers,” New York Times, March 13, 1986.
227wished to preserve the right: Roger Rosenblatt, Life Itself: Abortion in the American Mind (New York: Random House, 1992), 8.
227“permit but discourage”: Rosenblatt, Life Itself, 177.
227“less necessary”: “A New Covenant with the American People,” Democratic Party platform, 1992. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1992-democratic-party-platform.
227“right to life”: This sentence first appeared in the Republican Party platform in 1984. “The Vision Shared: The Republican Platform, Uniting Our Family, Our Country, Our World,” Republican Party platform, 1992. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1992-republican-party-platform.
227a tiny organization: Mary Jacksteit, interview with the author, April 24, 2017.
227reveal an aborted female fetus: Connie Paige, The Right to Lifers: Who They Are, How They Operate, And Where They Get Their Money (New York: Summit, 1983), 106–9.
227“one of those subjects”: Katha Pollitt, PRO: Reclaiming Abortion (London: Picador, 2014), 44.
227“all wrong”: Linda Bird Francke, “Running Scared on Abortion,” New York Times, May 6, 1978.
227“with no real good”: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Jennifer Donnally, October 22, 2007. Interviews of Jennifer M. Donnally, 2007–2012, MC1059, Box 60, CD 6. Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
228“A great number of Americans”: Dworkin, Life’s Dominion, 124.
228“Who decides?”: Saletan, Bearing Right, 69.
228even at eighty-three: Wanda Martinson, email to the author, March 5, 2018.
228“because it is bad”: John Hart Ely, “The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade,” Yale Law Journal 82, no. 920 (1973).
228“In the entire opinion”: Robert Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 112.
228fourteen cases: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), Section VIII, first two paragraphs.
228“the Wandering Jew”: Richard Posner, Overcoming Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 180.
228“as delineated”: Brief for a Group of American Law Professors as Amicus Curiae in Support of Appellees, p.1, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 109 S. Ct. 3040 (1989).
228proved a valuable precedent: Mary Ziegler, “Roe v. Wade Was About More than Abortion,” New York Times, January 21, 2018. In re Quinlan was a 1975 case concerning the right to die, and State v. Saunders was a 1977 case concerning the crime of fornication, which the judge termed “an act of illicit sexual intercourse by a man, married or single, with an unmarried woman.”
229would hire female clerks: Mark R. Brown, “Gender Discrimination in the Supreme Court’s Clerkship Selection Process,” Oregon Law Review 75, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 381.
229“fundamental constitutional right”: Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989) (Justice Blackmun, concurring/dissenting).
229“a moving absence”: Janet Malcolm, “The Art of Testifying,” New Yorker, March 13, 2006.
229to live without fuss: David Garrow, “Justice Souter Emerges,” New York Times, September 25, 1994.
229would be “inappropriate”: David H. Souter, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of David H. Souter to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 1990.
229“I tremble for this”: Molly Yard, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of David H. Souter to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 1990.
229“thought and cared more deeply”: Dahlia Lithwick, “Justice Heartbreaker,” Slate, May 1, 2009.
229“a mockery”: Senator Dennis DeConcini, opening statement, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of David H. Souter to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., 1990.
230“extremely significant issues”: “Excerpts from Senate’s Hearings on the Souter Nomination,” New York Times, September 15, 1990.
230Just one argued: Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court (New York: Penguin, 1999), 468.
230“Roe implicates”: Justice David Souter clerk memo, July 12, 1991.
230“undue burden”: O’Connor used the phrase “undue burden” in her dissent in the 1983 case Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft, 462 U.S. 476 (1983). It had been used in service of abortion cases before, most recently by President Reagan’s solicitor general, Rex Lee, who, in a 1982 amicus brief (filed in the case of City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health), put forward a standard of “unduly burdensome.”
230concluded the opposite: Lazarus, Closed Chambers, 467.
231“abhorrence of abortion”: Sandra Day O’Connor, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, On the Nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 1981.
231“some stable, defensible middle ground”: Lazarus, Closed Chambers, 471.
231“Rehnquist and Scalia”: David Savage, “The Rescue of Roe vs. Wade,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1992.
231“essential holding”: “The Supreme Court; Excerpts from the Justices’ Decision in the Pennsylvania Case,” New York Times, June 30, 1992.
231“Even in the earliest stages”: Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).
231“The ability of women”: Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.
232ought to undergird Roe: Ruth B. Ginsburg, “Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade,” University of North Carolina Law Review 63, no. 2 (1985): 375. Ginsburg suggested that Roe ought to have been rooted not in the due process clause but in the equal protection clause. Blackmun would allow that he thought the criticism “valid” but that he wouldn’t have gotten the five votes he needed for Roe with that line of reasoning. As he told his former clerk, Professor Harold Hongju Koh, on June 2, 1995: “William O. Douglas was dead set against approaching the case on that ground, and he would have had enough agreement on the Court that five votes to that effect would never have been achieved.” The Justice Harry A. Blackmun Oral History Project, HABP, 202.
232“among the most memorable”: Garrow, “Justice Souter Emerges.”
232“The court is not asked”: Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.
233Blackmun recalled: In a statement on April 7, 1994, Norma praised Blackmun and said: “I’d like to shake his hand and chat with him.” The Justice Harry A. Blackmun Oral History Project, Harold H. Koh, interviewer, September 9, 1994, 40. HABP.
PART VI: BORN AGAIN
237“I did not imagine”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, December 13, 2016.
237“It smelled like death”: Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR, June 9, 1994.
238She grew surly: Debbie Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe,” Village Voice, April 30, 1996.
238“Run-down, depressed”: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
238six-plus dollars an hour: Helen Thorpe, “Roe v. World,” Texas Monthly, July 1995.
238“How far along”: Thorpe, “Roe v. World.”
238“I can give you”: Thorpe, “Roe v. World.”
238“This issue”: Associated Press, “Violence at clinics scares ‘Roe,’ ” Augusta Chronicle, January 4, 1995.
238“If abortion killed”: Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 263.
239“acting like it’s murder”: Randall A. Terry, Operation Rescue (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1988), 194.
239“I was conceived”: Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Crown, 1991), 416.
239born again: James Risen and Judy L. Thomas, Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 224–26.
239“sobbed convulsively”: Risen and Thomas, Wrath of Angels, 232. The film was titled Whatever Happened to the Human Race?
239bombing an abortion clinic: Risen and Thomas, Wrath of Angels, 237.
239the Terrys convinced a woman: Randall Terry, interview with the author, December 4, 2018. The Terrys adopted the two children in 1994.
240“It’s for Jesus”: Risen and Thomas, Wrath of Angels, 253.
240kidnapped an Illinois provider: The name of the abortion provider was Dr. Hector Zevallos. Alesha Doan, Opposition and Intimidation: The Abortion Wars and Strategies of Political Harassment (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 109.
240from Jeremiah to Luke: Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I sanctified you” (KJV). Luke 1:44: “For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (KJV).
240“We must obey”: Terry, Operation Rescue, 95.
240the Apostle Peter: Acts 5:29 (KJV).
240“violence” and “force”: Susan Faludi, “The Antiabortion Crusade of Randy Terry,” Washington Post, December 23, 1989.
240“ethically legitimate”: Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 30, 2019.
240destroy the crematoria: Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 30, 2019.
240“Tyrannicide”: Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 30, 2019.
240“When I, or people like me”: Skipp Porteous, “OR Founder Calls for ‘Christian Nation,’ ” Freedom Writer (newsletter of the Institute for First Amendment Studies), September 1995.
240“We have bullets”: Thorpe, “Roe v. World.”
241four of them dead: NARAL, “Anti-Choice Violence and Intimidation Fact Sheet,” January 1, 2017.
241“you sow blood”: Randall Terry, interview with the author, February 1, 2019.
241burst into his clinic: Curtis Boyd, “The Morality of Abortion: The Making of a Feminist Physician,” St. Louis University Public Law Review 13 (1993–94): 303–14.
241tires slashed: Boyd, “The Morality of Abortion.”
241the pressures exerted: David E. Anderson, “Doctors, Patients, Assess Abortion Ruling,” UPI, March 15, 1990.
241“What we end up getting”: Sheryl Stolberg, “More Like War than Medicine,” Los Angeles Times, March 20, 1993.
241just 12 percent: J. Steinauer, J. Turk, T. Pomerantz, K. Koenemann, K. Simonson and U. Landry, “Abortion Training in U.S. Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Programs,” Obstetrics and Gynecology 130, supp. 1 (2017): 44S–45S. According to Lois Backus, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, hospitals that didn’t provide abortion training were either Catholic, or were responding to pro-life pressure, or no longer felt the need to do so because nearby clinics were performing abortions. Lois Backus, interview with the author, January 11, 2018.
241forced to mandate: In 1995, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education introduced abortion into its program requirements for obstetrics and gynecology. It wrote: “Experience with induced abortion must be part of residency training, except for residents with moral or religious objections . . .” “Abortion training to Be Required in Standard Ob/Gyn Curriculum,” Reproductive Freedom News 4, no. 4 (February 24, 1995): 6–7. That language would evolve. In 2017, Section IV.A.6.d of the ACGME Program Requirements for Graduate Medical Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology stated: “Programs must provide training or access to training in the provision of abortions, and this must be part of the planned curriculum.”
241“conscience clause”: The first such clause was a rider to the Public Health Services Act, June 18, 1973.
241“It was my Christian values”: Jon O’Brien, “Why I Am Prochoice,” Conscience 34, no. 3 (September 22, 2013): 14.
242spoke out against: All Things Considered, NPR, March 11, 1993.
242“injure, intimidate or interfere”: Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances & Places of Religious Worship Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 248, a1.
242“toward symbolic action”: Carol Mason, Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 102.
242“We knew”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
242“anything to overcome”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
242he suggested: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
242invited him: Jim Henderson, “Bio: Flip Benham,” Houston Chronicle, May 31, 1998.
242“I said, ‘Oh my gosh!’ ”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
243“church would be”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
243“fat and soft”: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
243“preacher started praying”: Norman Mailer, “By Heaven Inspired,” New Republic, October 12, 1992.
243he merely prayed: Philip Benham, interview with the author, February 9, 2018.
243“keep doing”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
243“When that check”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
243“I think it comes”: Johanna Schoen, email to the author, August 26, 2020.
244“It was just”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
244“moral Americans”: Jerry Falwell, Listen America! (New York: Doubleday, 1980), 252.
244homosexuality was an evil: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
244“It’s sin”: Tamar Lewin, “Death of a Doctor: The Moral Debate,” New York Times, July 30, 1994.
244“You ought to be ashamed”: Norma McCorvey and Gary Lee Thomas, Won by Love: Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe V. Wade, Speaks Out for the Unborn as She Shares Her New Conviction for Life (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 51–52.
244“In essence”: U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Regulation, Business Opportunities and Energy, “Investigation and Hearing on Bogus Abortion Clinics: The Role of False, Deceptive and Misleading Telephone Directory Advertisements and Listings; State Enforcement Efforts and the Extent of Federal Consumer Protection Jurisdiction,” May 24, 1991, p. 67. 102nd Cong., 1st sess.
244“attempted physical restraint”: Wyden, “Investigation and Hearing on Bogus Abortion Clinics,” 2.
245accused of strong-arming: Marc Cooper, “Robbing the Cradle,” Village Voice, July 26, 1994.
245“These woman-centered strategies”: Kimberly Kelly, “In the Name of the Mother: Renegotiating Conservative Women’s Authority in the Crisis Pregnancy Center Movement,” Signs 38, no. 1 (Autumn 2012): 203–30.
245Supreme Court would defend: National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra 585 U.S. ___ (2018)
245for promoting abstinence: The reporter Eliza Griswold noted that CPCs received federal funding under both President Clinton, whose 1996 welfare reform law included $50 million annually for abstinence education, and President George W. Bush, who in 2003 allotted an additional $33 million for abstinence education. Eliza Griswold, “The New Front Line of the Anti-Abortion Movement,” New Yorker, November 11, 2019.
245two thousand or so: Wyden, “Investigation and Hearing on Bogus Abortion Clinics,” 1.
245CPCs far outnumbering: Amy G. Bryant and Jonas J. Swartz, “Why Crisis Pregnancy Centers are Legal but Unethical,” AMA Journal of Ethics 20, no. 3 (2018): 269–77.
245“we could talk to moms”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
245“horrified”: “Operation Rescue Moves in Next to Clinic,” Los Angeles Times, April 1, 1995.
245helped to shutter A to Z: “A to Z Women’s Clinic Closes Suddenly,” Aware 3, no. 3 (March 1995): 4.
245“At the killing center”: “Operation Rescue Moves in Next to Clinic.”
245Norma stopped working weekends: Barry Shlachter, “Between Battles, 2 Opponents Connect,” Fort Worth Star–Telegram, May 18, 1995.
246“She was really upset”: Rene Nevarez, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
246saw The Silent Scream: The film was made in 1984 by Jack Dabner and Dr. Bernard Nathanson. It used ultrasound to show an abortion being performed. Many dismissed the film, and with it the reactions ascribed to the fetus, as grossly misleading. Planned Parenthood said it was “riddled with scientific, medical, and legal inaccuracies as well as misleading statements and exaggerations.” Planned Parenthood Federation of America, “The Facts Speak Louder Than the ‘Silent Scream,’ ” 1985.
246“By the time we got”: Rene Nevarez, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
246“She wanted to make sure”: Rene Nevarez, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
246“a great evil”: Rene Nevarez, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
246“I remember thinking Flip’s approach”: Rene Nevarez, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
247“Opening up a conversation”: Rene Nevarez, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
247“He yelled at me”: Rene Nevarez, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
247offered to divine his future: Shlachter, “Between Battles.”
247“She was looking”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, November 20, 2012.
247her fiancé’s parents: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
248“I wasn’t afraid”: McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, 208.
248“need Jesus too”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
248“as long as they’re not killing”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
248“I wanted her to go”: Emily Blewett, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
248“I had viewed”: McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, 106.
248“a child, not a problem”: McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, 106.
248“She began to see me”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, November 20, 2012.
248“operating open saloon”: Norma was arrested on November 4, 1971. Texas Department of Public Safety records.
248“She kind of reminded”: Jamie Cackler Bennetts, interview with the author, March 5, 2017.
249O’Hara cold-called her: Meghan O’Hara, interview with the author, January 16, 2018.
249“I literally dropped”: Meghan O’Hara, interview with the author, January 16, 2018.
249“Nobody wanted to hear”: Meghan O’Hara, interview with the author, January 16, 2018.
249ran on the front page: Shlachter, “Between Battles.”
250“I was lonely”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
250“I still haven’t met”: Susan Swartz, “The Real Jane Roe,” Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), October 1, 1989.
250“looking for a spiritual”: Today, NBC, June 17, 1995.
250“a leader”: NOW spokeswoman Sheri O’Dell as quoted in Steven Waldman, “Attacking the Real ‘Jane Roe,” Newsweek, April 17, 1989.
251“be the first girl”: Norma McCorvey and Andy Meisler, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade, and Freedom of Choice (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 124.
251“They didn’t really lead me”: Angela Bonavoglia, ed., The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out Against Abortion (New York: Random House, 1991), 139.
251“a wonderful person”: Barbara Milbauer, The Law Giveth: Legal Aspects of the Abortion Controversy (New York: Atheneum, 1983), 13. Norma was interviewed by Milbauer on September 20, 1980.
251wrote in a memoir: Sarah Weddington, A Question of Choice (London: Penguin, 1993), 16.
251explained away that discomfort: Associated Press, “Abortion Plaintiff Had Baby,” Chicago Tribune, January 23, 1973.
251“A decision had to be made”: Weddington spoke on February 28, 1976. Bonnie Andrikopoulos and Warren M. Hern, eds., Abortion in the Seventies: Proceedings of the Western Regional Conference on Abortion, Denver, Colorado, February 27–29, 1976, (New York: National Abortion Federation, 1977), 279. Weeks later, on March 12, 1976, Weddington told the same story to Jeannette Bailey Cheek, former director of the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe. Said Weddington: “She chose to carry the pregnancy to term because at that point the law regarding abortion was in a nebulous enough state that we were afraid that the Supreme Court, if it wanted to, could duck the issue by saying that it was moot because she had been able to get an abortion. So we thought if we showed the court that she’d actually had to go through the pregnancy, that that would give us the best kind of standing. We explained all that to Jane Roe and told her if she wanted to go [out of state for an abortion], we would help her. But I think even then, she had in some ways a sense of the historic proportion of the case.” Sarah Weddington, interview with Jeannette B. Cheek, March 12, 1976, 24–25. Schlesinger–Rockefeller Oral History Project, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
252“I think they’re embarrassed”: Dana Rubin, “Roe Redux,” Texas Monthly, February 1993.
252“I don’t have”: Tammye Nash, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Goes Public with New Book,” Dallas Voice, July 1, 1994.
252“The Vassar girls”: Philip Benham, “Hallelujah! Jesus is Alive!,” Operation Rescue newsletter, August 25, 1995.
252Rosaura Jimenez: David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe, Obstacle Course (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020), 84.
252“With the national organizations”: Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, “How a Divided Left Is Losing the Battle on Abortion,” New York Times, December 1, 2019.
253“to be a woman”: Dias and Lerer, “How a Divided Left.”
253filled with the Holy Spirit: Morris Sheats, interview with the author, January 29, 2018.
253“it bothered me”: Morris Sheats, interview with the author, January 29, 2018.
253“tired of living”: McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, 159.
253“immoral”: On July 22, 1995, the clinic A Choice for Women in Dallas, Texas, sent employees a “confidential memo.” Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
253“I want to go up”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
253“all warm inside”: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
254Norma quit the clinic: Lianne Hart, “Neighbors—in Name Only,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1995.
254Norma called Miss Ronda: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
254“a lady I can trust”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2017.
255“I honestly have to say”: Norma McCorvey, interview with Peggy Wehmeyer, ABC News, August 8, 1995.
255“They genuinely love me”: Norma McCorvey, interview with Wehmeyer.
255“I just wonder”: Norma McCorvey, interview with Wehmeyer.
255“What if your new church”: Norma McCorvey, interview with Wehmeyer.
255“She kept saying”: Roe vs. Roe: Baptism by Fire, film, directed by Meghan O’Hara, Cinemax, 1997.
256“God’s poem”: “Norma’s Baptism,” ABC News, August 8, 1995.
256“the sinful desires”: “Norma’s Baptism,” ABC News.
256“the ultimate convert”: Frank Bruni, Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg, “The Argument, Credibility and Converts: Revisiting Tara Reade and Jane Roe,” New York Times, May 28, 2020.
256“I baptize you”: “Norma’s Baptism,” ABC News.
256“hedge of protection”: “Norma’s Baptism,” ABC News.
257“It involves the woman”: ABC World News Tonight, August 10, 1995.
257crucifix refashioned by Benham: Philip Benham, interview with the author, July 18, 2017.
257the New York Post: “Jane Roe flip-flops on abortion: ‘I’M PRO-LIFE,’ ” New York Post, August 11, 1995.
257President Clinton: Knight-Ridder, “Ripples from McCorvey’s Baptism Wash across Country,” Southern Illinoisan, August 13, 1995, 18.
257“God has given Norma”: Philip Benham, interview with Peggy Wehmeyer, ABC News, August 8, 1995.
258The 700 Club: Steven Waldman and Ginny Carroll, “Roe v. Roe,” Newsweek, August 21, 1995.
258“Jesus won”: Joe Maxwell, “Driving Miss Norma,” World, August 26–September 2, 1995.
258“The poster child”: Ellen Goodman, “Ambivalent Poster Child,” Washington Post, August 16, 1995.
258“a person who has”: Bob Mahlburg and Barry Shlachter, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Switches Sides,” Fort Worth Star–Telegram, August 11, 1995.
258“She got to be right”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, June 2, 2012.
258“It’s a career choice”: Gloria Allred, interview with the author, May 7, 2012.
258“All they ever wanted me”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
258“She lied to me”: ABC News Nightline, ABC, August 10, 1995.
258“What she does”: “ ‘Jane Roe’ New Position Reaction,” August 10, 1995. CONUS Video Archive.
258“All Jane Roe did”: Waldman and Carroll, “Roe v. Roe.”
258“There is a moral responsibility”: Religion News Service, “Reaction swift and strong to ‘Roe’ conversion to anti-abortion side,” August 11, 1995.
259“Norma McCorvey should be seen”: Naomi Wolf, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” New Republic, October 16, 1995.
259“What if they try”: ABC News Nightline, August 10, 1995.
259“dying to reconcile”: CNN, August 11, 1996.
259no more public comments: Bill Minutaglio and Monica Soto, “Effect of McCorvey Baptism Unclear in Abortion Debate: Benham denies that he orchestrated timing of event,” Dallas Morning News, August 12, 1995.
259“I’m not pro-choice”: Al Baker and Jane Furse, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Is Pro-Herself Doesn’t Want A Role in Abortion Debate,” New York Daily News, August 12, 1995. I had not yet discovered this sentence when in 2013, I wrote a similar one in Vanity Fair. (“But in truth McCorvey has long been less pro-choice or pro-life than pro-Norma.”) I then found yet another similar sentence in Newsweek: “This is not pro-choice, it is not pro-life. It is pro-Norma” (Waldman and Carroll, “Roe v. Roe”).
259“I wouldn’t leave Connie”: Baker and Furse, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Is Pro-Herself.”
259owned a saloon: Mahlburg and Shlachter, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Switches Sides.”
259“Norma will be set free”: Associated Press, “Jane Roe’s ‘Conversion’ Took Just 4 Months,” August 12, 1995.
260“He’s the devil”: Associated Press, “Jane Roe’s ‘Conversion.’ ”
260many women wished: Pat Keeble, “Feminist Heroine of ‘Roe’ Case Enters East Bay Politics,” Contra Costa Times, July 14, 1990.
260“Dear Lord”: Norma McCorvey, undated note. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
260“she was talking”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 29, 2018.
260“to be as articulate”: Dan Donehey, interview with the author, April 22, 2018.
261“God used the child”: Press release for Reversing Roe. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
261one in six Americans: In January 1998, 17 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll said that abortion ought to be illegal in all circumstances. Gallup, “Abortion,” September 25, 2020, https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx.
261“compromise”: “Miss Norma has experienced a real turn around,” Operation Rescue newsletter, October 25, 1995.
261a passage in Corinthians: 1 Corinthians 6:11 states of homosexuality: “and that is what some of you were” (KJV). The past-tense “were” indicated, said Benham, that homosexuality could be left behind.
261homosexuality could be vanquished: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 1, 2018.
261“The couple assured me”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, November 20, 2012.
261“The love is still there”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
261“I still have”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
261quit her job: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
261“He never could get”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
261baptized by Benham: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
262curb the sinful desires: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 29, 2018.
262“success rate”: Wyatt Buchanan, “Report: ‘Ex-Gay’ Therapy Claims Deceptive,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 2006.
262Chambers left to apologize: Alan Chambers, “I Am Sorry,” Exodus International blog, June 19, 2013. https://exodusinternational.org/2013/06/i-am-sorry/. Accessed November 30, 2020.
262“I could just tell”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 30, 2018.
262“I said, ‘Norma’ ”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 26, 2018.
262occasional night with a stranger: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, October 17, 2013.
262“She was a sexual being”: Meghan O’Hara, interview with the author, December 19, 2017.
262would long recall her prowess: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 30, 2015. Diane Hyman, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
262“I never have found”: Rene Stutzman, “ ‘Jane Roe’ still faces backlash from landmark abortion battle,” UPI, September 29, 1985.
262“a delinquent child”: Clerk’s File Docket and Civil Fee Book, Juvenile Court, Dallas County, No. 60–1993–Juv, October 31, 1960.
262“healing Norma”: Jan Jarboe Russell, “No Choice,” Texas Monthly, October 29, 1995.
263“rearticulated her”: Christianna K. Barnard, “Jane Roe Gone Rogue: Norma McCorvey’s Transformation as a Symbol of the U.S. Abortion Debate,” MA thesis, Sarah Lawrence College, 2018.
263“coded herself as straight”: Barnard, “Jane Roe Gone Rogue.”
263“[If] I know”: Angelia Wilson, Below the Belt: Religion, Sexuality and Politics in the Rural South. (New York: Bloomsbury, 1999), 105.
263“from all appearances”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 1, 2018. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 (KJV).
263200,000 miles: Jeff Hooten, “Roe No More,” Focus on the Family’s Citizen magazine, January 20, 1997.
263“I couldn’t finish”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
263“I wept . . .”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
263“like a prophet”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
263let go of her hatred: Norma wrote of the comfort Morris Sheats provided her in a note she titled “Passing of a Parent/Friend,” January 4, 1996. NMP.
263“could stand before God”: Associated Press, “ ‘Roe’ Switches Faiths and Joins Catholic Church,” October 19, 1998.
264“This is my home”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
264“Flip had a fit”: Associated Press, “ ‘Roe’ Switches Faiths.”
264only to rehire them: Jessie Anne Nobles, interview with the author, April 25, 2018.
264“It was his way”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
264“in the fountain”: Operation Rescue newsletter, January 27, 1996.
264“Norma has repented”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
264“I was thinking principally”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
265“Everybody wanted”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
265abortion providers executed: In September 1995, Terry spoke to a gathering of the radical right U.S. Taxpayers Alliance. Said Terry: “When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you.” Porteous, “OR Founder.”
265a choreographed kiss: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
265“We forgive you”: Reversing Roe, film, directed by Dan Donehey, Donehey & Associates, 1996.
265she proclaimed Jane Roe dead: Associated Press, “ ‘Jane Roe’ in D.C. to Mark Heated Anniversary,” January 22, 1996.
265“Glory!”: Operation Rescue newsletter, February 15, 1996. Courtesy of Sheree Havlik.
265“Hallelujah!”: Associated Press, “ ‘Jane Roe’ in D.C.”
265“her bargain clothes”: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
265“Miss Norma McCorvey”: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
265coined one year prior: The phrase “partial-birth abortion” was coined in 1995 by three people: congressman Charles Canady, congressional lawyer Keri Harrison, and Douglas Johnson, policy adviser of the National Right to Life Committee. See Cynthia Gorney, “Gambling with Abortion,” Harper’s Online, January 1, 2005.
265“Lord, use my body”: The sentence is from Norma’s poem “Empty Playgrounds.”
266“to find Jesus”: Jason Sickles and Todd Bensman, “Roe vs. Wade Figure Accused of Pushing Worker at Clinic,” Dallas Morning News, March 16, 1996.
266“under wraps”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 23, 2018.
266Norma simply knelt: “Norma McCorvey Remarks,” April 30, 1996. CONUS Video Archive.
266“bought by the blood”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
266“Miss Norma”: Hooten, “Roe No More.”
266two hundred dollars: Philip Benham, email to the author, November 20, 2020.
266the landlord had agreed: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 4, 2018.
266“I wrote my own ticket”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
267“You start dealing”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 12, 2018.
267Department of Motor Vehicles: Frank Pavone, email to the author, January 22, 2021.
267“the most important moral issue”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 12, 2018.
267“I was being called”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 12, 2018.
268“Never discount anyone”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 12, 2018.
268“I’d love to be able”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, November 30, 2012.
268“the de facto chaplain”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, August 16, 2018.
268“it was not a focus”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 18, 2018.
268“to a past relationship”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 12, 2018.
268“a gospel issue”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 23, 2018.
268“a battle over”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 29, 2018.
268“You go to confession”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, November 20, 2012.
269“such a thing”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 12, 2018.
269presidential nominee Bob Dole: Dole had proposed that Republicans soften the language on abortion in their platform. He backtracked.
269“excommunicated”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 5, 2018.
269pledged himself: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 5, 2018.
269gone to Planned Parenthood: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 5, 2018.
269“I look at these children”: Leigh Sales, “Troy Newman: the American anti-abortion campaigner facing deportation from Australia,” ABC News Australia, December 1, 2015.
270“to tell them”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 7, 2018.
270“permissible theologically”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 7, 2018.
270“The mom put the baby”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
270“feeling very uneasy”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 26, 2021.
270veered from the script: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
270“There was crying”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
270“He would trot Norma out”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
270accepted an invitation: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
270“cut out”: Gary Thomas, “Roe v. McCorvey,” Christianity Today, January 12, 1998.
270“He’s too tough”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Ronda Mackey, August 29, 1996. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
271“I wanted a closer walk”: Janet Thoma, interview with the author, May 3, 2018.
271a book by Jerry Falwell: Jerry Falwell, If I Should Die Before I Wake (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986).
271it was a sin: Hooten, “Roe No More.”
271Connie was now straight: “Conservative corner exclusive interview!” January 22, 1997. McCorvey papers.
271“I chose to be a lesbian”: Melanie Schurr, “The Lord Turned My Life Around,” Lookout, March 16, 1997.
271“I took . . . the McCorvey”: Janet Thoma, interview with the author, May 3, 2018.
271$80,000: Philip Benham, interview with the author, January 31, 2018.
271Norma use the money: Philip Benham, email to the author, November 22, 2018.
271fixed up the house: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 26, 2018.
272his job was not: Janet Thoma, interview with the author, May 3, 2018.
272worked the phones: Thorpe, “Roe v. World.” Hart, “Neighbors—in Name Only.”
272“that he would not”: McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, 187.
273“he was a father”: Meghan O’Hara, interview with the author, January 19, 2018.
273“I started loving you”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Ronda Mackey, undated. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
273“You are not only”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Ronda Mackey, undated. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
273had helped to enlist: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
273“I just couldn’t believe”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Ronda Mackey, October 9, 1997. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
273“If I didn’t show up”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, October 7, 2018.
273“I’m sad”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Ronda Mackey, undated. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
274“strive in the name”: Rev. Mel McGinnis, “Legacy After Roe Redemptively Lives On,” letter to the editor, Post–Journal (Jamestown, NY), January 27, 2018.
274“It’s an industry”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 23, 2018.
274did not promote Norma’s film: Dan Donehey, interview with the author, April 22, 2018.
274thirty-nine states: Jan Crawford Greenburg, “Roe vs. Wade at 25: America’s Great Divide,” Chicago Tribune, January 19, 1998.
274“What hurt the most”: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 23, 2018.
274“Her theology”: Waldman and Carroll, “Roe v. Roe.”
275write to a friend: “Praise the Lord!,” she wrote. Norma McCorvey, email to Meghan O’Hara, May 7, 1998. NMP.
275“A still, small voice”: McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, 233.
275turned her away: Roe No More newsletter, December 1997. Courtesy of Philip Benham.
275soon on air with Pavone: The episode of Defending Life that featured Norma was filmed in August 1997 and aired in 1998. Eternal World Television Network, 1998.
275“You’ve got to be compassionate”: Gary Thomas, interview with the author, May 3, 2018.
276at the Senate: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights, “Examining the Status of the Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade 25 Years Later,” January 21, 1998. 105th Cong., 2nd sess.
276“She lied to me”: U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights, “Examining the Status of the Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade 25 Years Later,” January 21, 1998. 105th Cong., 2nd sess.
276“I wish”: Carl Weiser, “ ‘Jane Roe’: Rape, incest don’t justify abortions,” News Journal (Wilmington, DE), January 18, 1998.
276“The lesbian nurse”: Mason, Killing for Life, 179.
276“We get the lesbian”: Carol Mason, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
276confided to a friend: Barbara Ellis, interview with the author, July 23, 2018.
277“Wouldn’t it be horrible”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, October 17, 2013.
277“sister in Christ”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 10, 2012. McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, ix.
277“I don’t care”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
277“YOUR THE REASON”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Connie Gonzalez, January 16, 1998. NMP.
277favoring vodka: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
277“She would throw”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
277Christian network was so angry: Moody Radio, fax to Ronda Mackey, March 11, 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
277publisher was angry, too: Thomas Nelson, Inc., fax to Ronda Mackey, March 11, 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
277“I started having”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
277“I know God wants”: Ron Mackey, letter to Norma McCorvey, February 27, 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
278“to seek God”: Ron Mackey, letter to Morris Sheats, March 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
278“of going full blast”: Ron Mackey, letter to Norma McCorvey, February 27, 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
278“I’M LOOKING”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Ronda Mackey, March 18, 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
278“If I see Ronda again”: Ron Mackey, letter to Morris Sheats, March 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
278“I Love You”: Ronda Mackey, letter to Norma McCorvey, March 17, 1998. Courtesy of Ronda Mackey.
278“insatiable yearning”: Nathan, “The Death of Jane Roe.”
278“I recall hearing Norma”: Fonda Lash, interview with the author, July 30, 2018.
279to stand outside Norma’s clinic: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
279“hedge of protection”: “Norma’s Baptism,” ABC News, August 8, 1995.
279“laughter and scripture”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 9, 2018.
279read it through twice: “Daniel Vinzant: Former Southern Baptist Minister,” The Journey Home, television program, Coming Home Network International, September 25, 1998.
279awoke in a sweat: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
279“the contrast”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
279“spear”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 9, 2018.
279stealing away on Sunday mornings: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
280“picking up the liturgy”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 9, 2018.
280privately confiding: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 9, 2018.
280with Catholic dogma: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 9, 2018.
280“She got to feel”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 31, 2018.
280how to pray: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 31, 2018.
281“The decision is in”: Norma McCorvey, email to Frank Pavone, May 21, 1998. NMP.
281“Praise the Lord!!!”: Norma McCorvey, “Coming Home to Rome,” Roe No More Ministries press release, June 15, 1998. NMP.
281“tell him I love him”: Norma McCorvey, email to Frank Pavone, May 22, 1998. NMP.
281“The work He wants”: Frank Pavone, email to Norma McCorvey, May 27, 1998. NMP.
281“by coming home”: Peter Sonski, “McCorvey to Enter Catholic Church,” National Catholic Register, June 21, 1998.
281okayed “every word”: Frank Pavone, email to the author, April 20, 2021.
281“He would do that”: Jenn Morson, interview with the author, October 27, 2020.
281“extremely hot”: McCorvey and Thomas, Won by Love, 158–60.
281“I clearly heard”: McCorvey, “Coming Home to Rome.”
282“full flowering”: Catholic News Service, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Says She’ll Become Catholic,” Catholic Advance, June 26, 1998.
282the catacombs in Rome: Edward Robinson, email to Norma McCorvey, June 19, 2007. NMP.
282crucifixion of St. Peter: Norma McCorvey with Frank Pavone, “My Journey into the Catholic Church” (New York: Priests for Life, 1999).
282“Father said”: Bill Howard, “Norma Received into the Catholic Church,” Catholic News Service, August 27, 1998.
282become her “sponsor”: Lynn Mills, interview with the author, June 26, 2018.
282“all the babies”: Frank Pavone, “Fr. Frank Pavone Receives Norma McCorvey into the Catholic Church,” video, YouTube, February 27, 2017.
28237 million legal: Rachel K. Jones and Kathryn Kooistra, “Abortion Incidence and Access to Services in the United States 2008,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 43, no. 1 (March 2011): 43, table 1.
283“like having my own children”: McCorvey with Pavone, “My Journey into the Catholic Church.”
283“abandoning”: Monika Maeckle, “The Double Life of Norma McCorvey,” Westwood Magazine (supplement of Dallas Times Herald), October 18, 1981.
PART VII: REPERCUSSION
287“terrified”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 4, 2012.
287“to run and hide”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 13, 2016.
287“He has his opinions”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
287“To hear that someone”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 4, 2012.
288“How can I come”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 4, 2012.
288“knowing who you are”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 4, 2012.
288“I knew what”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
288To speak of her birth: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
288“this big huge secret”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
288buy a pair of shoes: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 7, 2013.
288“I am done”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
288“You know how she”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 4, 2012.
288“I hate that I am”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
289“in a dark”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
289“always there”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
289“I would be like, you”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
289“I don’t like”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
289“For purposes”: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), Section IV A.
290in legal terms: A terminated pregnancy constitutes an exception to mootness that the law classifies as “capable of repetition, yet evading review.”
290“claimed to regret”: Johanna Schoen, Abortion After Roe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 149.
290“Does he know”: Holly B. Hampton, “Is ‘Ms. Roe’ thinking about her child’s life?,” letter to the editor, Tennessean, August 16, 1995.
290The first question: Norma McCorvey and Gary Lee Thomas, Won by Love: Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe V. Wade, Speaks Out for the Unborn as She Shares Her New Conviction for Life (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 49.
290she was bound for hell: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 16, 2013.
290“secular”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 9, 2013.
290“very dull”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
290“It could be something”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
291her tubes tied: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
291“cold-cocked me”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 5, 2014.
291“I just couldn’t”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, December 7, 2013.
291‘Yup, I’m gay’: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 5, 2014.
292her ex went to prison: Jennifer Ferguson, interviews with the author, December 17, 2012, and January 13, 2014.
292“She would be gone”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
292“she started drinking”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
293“She was like, ‘Oh’ ”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
293“She choked me”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
293“I didn’t have shit”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
294vowed to rid herself: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
294“Either we get”: Lisa Gipson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
294“It was always”: Lisa Gipson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
294“it kept me so flat”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
294“I felt like”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
294“he might not come”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
295“I had no crying”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 3, 2014.
295“He’d grab me”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
295“he’d done wrong”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
295“I thought I was crazy”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
295“Everybody knew”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, September 6, 2018.
296“I wanted him”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
296Jordan came out: Jordan Mills, interview with the author, September 9, 2018.
296“He wanted to beat”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
296blamed Melissa: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
296his horribleness: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 2, 2014.
296“purity of soul”: Lake of Fire, film, directed by Tony Kaye, Anonymous Content, 2008.
296made Melissa cry: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 11, 2012.
297“I love children”: Norma McCorvey, email to Judy Wiggins, July 21, 2009. Courtesy of Judy Wiggins.
297“I was looking”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
297“He was a dog”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
297“I couldn’t think”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 2, 2014.
298“I wanted to meet”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 2, 2014.
298What moved him: Eric Heumann, interview with the author, March 2, 2014.
299“I’ve tried to fill”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, August 8, 2013.
300her talking points: NMP.
300publishing a booklet: Norma McCorvey with Frank Pavone, “My Journey into the Catholic Church” (New York: Priests for Life, 1999).
300“unsure of the details”: Catholic News Service, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Says She’ll Become Catholic.”
300“I liked it so much”: McCorvey with Pavone, “My Journey into the Catholic Church.”
300“The Catholics are nonviolent”: Richard N. Ostling, “Roe Reconverts,” Associated Press, October 10, 1998.
301“that we had lost”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, August 16, 2018.
301“We all knew”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
301roughly doubled donations: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, August 16, 2018.
301“It would be extremely”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
301“condemned before God”: Ralph Ovadal, More Than These: A History of How the Pro-Life Movement Has Advanced the Cause of the Roman Catholic Church: A Call for Reformation (Monroe, WI: Heart of Matter Publications, 2004), 199.
301“as an evangelical”: “How Does the Christian World View the Pope’s Pilgrimage to the Holy Land?,” Larry King Live, CNN, March 22, 2000.
301“as close to an ecumenical”: N. E. H. Hull and Peter Charles Hoffer, Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in American History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 339.
301“Glorify God”: Len Bartlett of Premiere Speakers, email to Norma McCorvey, October 13, 1998. NMP.
301cashed her checks: Andy Meisler, interview with the author, November 14, 2012.
301“She was destitute financially”: Ron Allen, interview with the author, April 22, 2018.
301more than quadruple: Jennifer Gonnerman, “Father Frank’s Crusade,” Village Voice, May 22, 2001.
302“NO ONE WILL ‘CONTROL’ ”: Norma McCorvey, email to Ron Mackey, July 28, 1998. NMP.
302“We never know”: Bill Hampton, email to Norma McCorvey, August 25, 1998. NMP.
302to a speaking firm: The firm was called Interact Client Marketing. NMP.
302Pavone himself helped: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 31, 2018.
302“for any complicity”: Ostling, “Roe Reconverts.”
302depression was clinical: Medical notes of Dr. Ramon Garcia, April 21, 1999. NMP.
302“another million deaths”: Allan Parker, speaking in A Cold Day in Hell: The Conversion of Norma McCorvey, film, directed by Randall Terry, Victorious Lady Films, 2017.
302“They were over-scheduling”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 30, 2018.
302“National Day of Death”: NMP.
303wrote that God: Ruth Lasseter, email to Norma McCorvey, August 3, 1999. NMP.
303“Lord Jesus Christ”: Steven Waldman and Ginny Carroll, “Roe v. Roe,” Newsweek, August 21, 1995.
303“little Christians”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
303“I’d put my hands”: A Cold Day in Hell, film.
303“We’re pregnant”: A Cold Day in Hell, film.
303“shadow lesbian”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
303support abortion in just one instance: Benham made the comment to Angelia R. Wilson, a professor of politics at the University of Manchester. Cynthia Burack, Tough Love: Sexuality, Compassion and the Christian Right. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), 60.
303“Instead of building”: Philip Benham, “Homosexuality vs. Christianity . . . Should we build bridges or storm the gates?,” Operation Rescue newsletter, December 1999.
303“homosexuals and lesbians”: Randall A. Terry, The Judgement of God: Terrorism, Flood, Droughts and Disasters (Windsor, NY: Reformer Library, 1995), 49.
303“abortion and homosexuality”: Jim Schneider, Crosstalk, radio program, Voice of Christian Youth, July 9, 2015.
303“spell of lesbianism”: “Father Frank Pavone,” Daily Catholic, http://www.dailycatholic.org/pavonbio.htm.
303amendment to bar gay marriage: “Head-to-head: Should the U.S. Constitution bar gay marriage? Rev. Rob Schenck and Kevin Cathcart,” BBC News, February 26, 2004.
304“Nobody was going to”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
304“anxious and claustrophobic”: Karen Garnett, interview with the author, July 19, 2018.
304“King Herods I have”: Norma McCorvey, fax to Frank Pavone, January 10, 2000. NMP.
304“Miss Norma”: A Cold Day in Hell, film.
304the plains of Oklahoma: Allan Parker, interview with the author, January 17, 2020.
304“I was kind of”: Allan Parker, interview with the author, January 17, 2020.
305“major scientific theories”: Allan Parker, interview with the author, January 17, 2020.
305“alone with God”: Allan Parker, interview with the author, January 17, 2020.
305“So what?”: Allan Parker, interview with the author, January 17, 2020.
305including the International Covenant: Article 6(5) of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: “Sentence of death shall not . . . be carried out on pregnant women.” International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, United Nations General Assembly, December 16, 1966.
306life began at conception: Article 4(1) of the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights states: “Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception.” American Convention on Human Rights, Inter-American Specialized Conference on Human Rights, November 22, 1969.
306“to tell people”: Allan Parker, interview with the author, January 17, 2020.
306founded a local organization: The organization was called the Christian Conciliation Service of San Antonio.
306lawyers collected affidavits: Elizabeth Herrera, et al. v. The State of Texas, et al., Cause No. 2002–02958, 125th Judicial District Court of Harris County, Texas.
306Baby M adoption case: In re Baby M, 109 N.J. 396, 537 A.2d 1227 (1988).
306Cassidy was readying: The case was Santa Marie v. Whitman. (It was later named Marie v. McGreevey.) Frank Pavone, “Interview with Harold Cassidy, an attorney who is bringing a lawsuit that may challenge Roe v. Wade concerning the rights and well-being of women,” Life and Choice, Catholic Family Radio, October 31, 1999.
306more than nine in ten: G. Sisson, L. Ralph, H. Gould and D. G. Foster, “Adoption Decision Making among Women Seeking Abortion,” Women’s Health Issues 27, no. 2 (March/April 2017), 136–44.
306millions in China alone: In 2013, data from the Chinese health ministry revealed that since 1971, when China began to introduce policies to curb the population, doctors had performed 336 million abortions. The number of those that were forced was not known. In some parts of the country, the government mandated that women have intrauterine devices implanted after giving birth, and forced sterilizations and abortions were common, some in the third trimester. Mei Fong, author of One Child (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2015), estimates that the number of forced or coerced abortions is easily in the millions. Mei Fong, interview with the author, August 27, 2020. Simon Rabinovitch, “Data Reveal Scale of China Abortions,” Financial Times, March 15, 2013.
306Cassidy’s client had too: Rick Marschall, “The Man Who Would Reverse Roe v. Wade,” Rare Jewel Magazine, January/February 2005.
307“He was talking about”: Karen Garnett, interview with the author, July 19, 2018.
307“the lie that abortion”: “Important Supreme Court News from Allan Parker,” Prayer Surge Now blog, November 12, 2015.
307“post abortion survivor syndrome”: P. G. Ney, C. Sheils and M. Gajowy, “Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome,” Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health 25 (December 2010): 107–29.
307“post-abortion men”: C. T. Coyle and R. Enright, “Forgiveness Intervention with Postabortion Men,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 65, no. 6 (1997): 1042–46.
307“crankery”: David Tell, “Planned Un-Parenthood: Roe v. Wade at Thirty,” Weekly Standard, January 27, 2003.
307“no association”: National Cancer Institute, summary report: early reproductive events and breast cancer workshop, 2003. Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/abortion-miscarriage-risk.
307Mother Teresa wrote: “Mother Teresa Attacks Abortion,” Miami Herald, June 30, 1986, 5.
308born in 1948: Vincent Rue, interview with the author, February 10, 2021.
308“Psychologically and biologically”: Nancy Knaak, “The Psychology of Women, or No Rose, By This or Any Other Name,” Educational Horizons 52, no. 3 (1974): 123–34.
308“the true identity”: Liz McGuinness, “Should Women Be Educated to Compete with Men in Business?” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1964.
308presented a paper: Vincent M. Rue, “A U.S. Department of Marriage and the Family,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 35 (November 1973): 689–98.
308“The DMF”: “Uncle Sam, Marriage Counselor,” Human Behavior 3, no. 7 (July 1974): 42–43.
308activist named William Brennan: Vincent Rue, interview with the author, February 10, 2021.
308“so-called science”: Vincent Rue, interview with the author, February 10, 2021.
309“abortion counseling”: Vincent Rue, interview with the author, February 10, 2021.
309“brought up abortion”: Vincent Rue, interview with the author, February 10, 2021.
309twenty-four of its effects: Vincent Rue, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, “Constitutional Amendments Relating to Abortion: Hearings on S.J. Res. 17, S.J. Res. 18, S.J. Res. 19, and S.J. Res. 110,” November 4, 1981, p. 329–39. 97th Cong., 1st sess.
309“It’s a type”: Vincent Rue, interview with the author, October 31, 2018.
309woman named Olivia Gans: Olivia Gans, “When the Mothers Found Their Voice: The Emergence of the Post-Abortion Presence in America,” National Right to Life Committee, January 1998, https://www.nrlc.org/outreach/ava/.
309spoke of PAS: Tamara Henry, “Koop Discusses Abortion,” UPI, March 16, 1989.
309write up a report: Ellie J. Lee, “Post-Abortion Syndrome: Reinventing Abortion as a Social Problem,” in Joel Best, How Claims Spread: Cross-National Diffusion of Social Problems (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2001), 55.
309Dr. Koop reviewed: Henry, “Koop Discusses Abortion.”
309“flawed methodologically”: Letter from C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General, to President Ronald Reagan, January 9, 1989, reprinted in Family Planning Perspectives 21 (January/February 1989): 31–32.
309“He’s afraid”: Martin Tolchin, “Koop’s Stand on Abortion’s Effect Surprises Friends and Foes Alike,” New York Times, January 11, 1989.
310“always been able”: Tolchin, “Koop’s Stand.”
310“relatively rare”: N. E. Adler, H. P. David, B. N. Major, S. H. Roth, N. F. Russo and G. E. Wyatt, “Psychological Responses After Abortion,” Science 248, no. 4951 (April 6, 1990): 41–44.
310more likely to express relief: Adler et al., “Psychological Responses After Abortion.”
310indicate much the same: A 2008 report by the American Psychological Association found “no evidence sufficient to support the claim that an observed association between abortion history and mental health was caused by the abortion per se, as opposed to other factors.” Brenda Major, Mark Appelbaum, Linda Beckman, Mary Ann Dutton, Nancy Felipe Russo and Carolyn West, “Report of the Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion,” American Psychological Association, 2008, Washington, DC.
310The Turnaway Study: Corinne H. Rocca, Katrina Kimport, Sarah C. M. Roberts, Heather Gould, John Neuhaus and Diana G. Foster, “Decision Rightness and Emotional Responses to Abortion in the United States: A Longitudinal Study,” PLOS One, July 8, 2015.
310“no link between receiving”: Diana Greene Foster, email to the author, July 1, 2020.
310“There is no evidence”: Nada L. Stotland, MD, “The Myth of the Abortion Trauma Syndrome,” Journal of the American Medical Association 268, no.15 (1992): 2078–79.
310“Abortion is a right”: Sarah Bustain, “Choice Language,” American Prospect, November 22, 2004.
310“Abortions will not”: Gwendolyn Brooks, “the mother,” in Selected Poems (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1963).
310“overwhelming,” “minuscule”: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Operations, “Medical and Psychological Impact of Abortion,” March 16, 1989, p. 241. 101st Cong., 1st sess.
310has no greater impact: The study concluded that “severe negative reactions [to abortion] are rare, and they parallel those following other normal life stresses.” Nancy E. Adler et al., “Psychological Factors in Abortion: A Review,” American Psychologist 47, no.1194 (1992): 1202–03.
311“possible detrimental”: Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).
311“informed consent”: Lee, “Post-Abortion Syndrome,” 63.
311“You can’t repent”: Emily Bazelon, “Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?,” New York Times Magazine, January 21, 2007.
311“I am so scared”: Norma McCorvey, email to Nathan Macklin, December 1, 2003. NMP.
311convert Oprah: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker and other members of the Texas Justice Foundation, February 14, 2000. NMP.
312“The women”: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker et al.
312“I am particularly interested”: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker et al.
312“Me too”: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker et al.
312“a couple of pitchers”: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker et al.
312Norma had been unequivocal: Norma later recalled that she learned the word “abortion” from a nurse while pregnant with her second child. Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, July 8, 2016.
312“built upon false”: Brief for Norma McCorvey as Amicus Curiae, Donna Santa Marie, et al. vs. Christine Todd Whitman, et al., Civil Action No. 99–2692 (GEB), March 15, 2000.
312“God is going to overturn”: Transcript of meeting between Norma McCorvey and Allan Parker et al.
313“the most important”: “Statement of Norma McCorvey,” March 2000, Texas Justice Foundation. NMP.
313“at least gives the mother”: “Statement of Norma McCorvey,” Texas Justice Foundation.
313“even more painful”: Marian Faux, Roe v. Wade: The Untold Story of the Landmark Supreme Court Decision That Made Abortion Legal (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1988), 119.
313“at risk for long-term”: The article reviewed the findings of twelve studies, representing a total of 625 women. Hollie A. Askren and Kathleen C. Bloom, “Postadoptive Reactions of the Relinquishing Mother: A Review,” Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing 28, no. 4 (July/August 1999): 395–400.
313“We’re not animals”: Monika Maeckle, “The Double Life of Norma McCorvey,” Westwood Magazine (supplement of Dallas Times Herald), October 18, 1981.
313disseminating an instruction sheet: “Instructions for Completing Affidavit and Authorization Form,” Texas Justice Foundation, 2000. NMP.
313“The plan”: Kathleen Cassidy, “Post-Abortive Women Attack Roe v. Wade,” At the Center, January 2001.
313“For a long time”: “History in the Making: ‘Roe’ Files Motion to Re-open Roe v. Wade, the Landmark Case Legalizing Abortion,” Sermonindex.net, June 17, 2003.
313“Severe depression”: “History in the Making.”
314catastrophes God would bring: Allan Parker, “Message to Pastors: Warning Something Big Is Coming,” Christian Newswire, July 17, 2015.
314“It is my duty”: Parker, “Message to Pastors.”
314verses from Isaiah: Isaiah 28:17–18: “Also I will make justice the measuring line, And righteousness the level; Then hail will sweep away the refuge of lies And the waters will overflow the secret place. Your covenant with death will be canceled, And your pact with Sheol will not stand” (NKJV).
314when God planted in him: Karen Garnett recalled that Parker spoke of his plan to collect affidavits before his return to Dallas. Karen Garnett, interview with the author, July 19, 2018. Marschall, “The Man Who Would Reverse Roe v. Wade.” “PSN 11/14 with John Robb,” Prayer Surge Now.
314Pavone maintained his ties: Email exchange between Norma McCorvey, Frank Pavone and Janet Morana, January 7, 2002. NMP.
314she was the keynote speaker: Reception program, “Life In the West II,” Justice Foundation, June 29, 2002. NMP.
315“applying [the decision] prospectively”: “Grounds for Relief from a Final Judgment, Order or Proceeding,” Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 60b.
315“You have to show”: Marschall, “The Man Who Would Reverse Roe v. Wade.”
315“a woman now has”: Marschall, “The Man Who Would Reverse Roe v. Wade.”
315he and Norma announced: “History in the Making.”
315“What if Roe v. Wade”: Patrick J. Buchanan, “A Decision Based on Deceit,” American Cause, June 23, 2003, theamericancause.org.
316knew this to be untrue: Philip Benham, interview with the author, May 23, 2018. Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 31, 2018.
316Parker insists: Allan Parker, email to the author, January 25, 2021.
316lie at the heart: Affidavit of Norma McCorvey, June 11, 2003, McCorvey v. Hill, Civil Action No. 3:03–CV-1340–N (formerly 3–3690–B and 3–3691–C) (N.D. Tex. Jun. 19, 2003).
316“the link between”: “New Developments in the Battle to Overturn Roe v. Wade & Doe v. Bolton,” Justice Foundation, undated. NMP.
316nearly three thousand women: Sarah E. Burns, “2,887 Women Who Have Had Abortions et al.,” Brief as Amicus Curiae, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989).
316“respond with support”: Just 26.8 percent of disclosures, wrote Cowan, “received a negative reaction.” Sarah K. Cowan, “Enacted Abortion Stigma in the United States,” Social Science & Medicine 177 (March 2017): 259–68.
31642 million: “Induced Abortion, Facts in Brief 2000,” Guttmacher Institute, https://web.archive.org/web/20020312193042/http:/www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html. The total number of legal abortions performed between 1973 and 2000 was slightly more than 39 million. To this number I added the roughly 2.6 million performed in 2001–02.
316the only photo: Elizabeth Gumport, “Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Anger,” New York Times, April 29, 2018.
316stigma so intense: The National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws became NARAL Pro Choice America.
317“sad anti-choice”: “Roe v. Roe? Too Late, Texas Judge Says,” National Catholic Register, June 29, 2003.
317not a single brief: Lynn M. Paltrow, “Missed Opportunities in McCorvey v. Hill: The Limits of Pro-Choice Lawyering,” NYU Review of Law and Social Change 35, no. 194 (2011): 197.
317“a stunning non-response”: Paltrow, “Missed Opportunities.”
317“The pro-choice”: Paltrow, “Missed Opportunities.”
317“was certainly final”: Lisa Falkenberg, “Court Dismisses Request to Reconsider Roe v. Wade,” Austin American–Statesman, June 21, 2003.
317“The implication”: Jeannie Suk, “The Trajectory of Trauma: Bodies and Minds of Abortion Discourse,” Columbia Law Review 110, no.1193 (2010): 1195–97.
317Buchanan compared him: Buchanan, “A Decision Based on Deceit.”
317Dick and Betsy DeVos: The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation donated $25,000 to the Justice Foundation in 2003, the year Parker filed McCorvey v. Hill. See https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4488372-Dick-and-Betsy-Devos-Family-Foundation-2003.html.
317the Covenant Foundation funded him: The Covenant Foundation funded the Justice Foundation for five years, starting in 2000 when Parker first partnered with Norma. It donated a total of $870,000. See https://www.influencewatch.org/nonprofit/covenant-foundation-inc/.
317“mouth-peace”: Norma McCorvey, email to Allan Parker, 2005. NMP.
317“vital to be more jealous”: Robert Cooley, letter to Philip Benham, August 11, 1995. NMP.
318a Catholic pro-life group: The Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas.
318poinsettias and bird food: Edward Robinson, email to Norma McCorvey, December 14, 1998. NMP.
318“a little clutch purse”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
318“She was alone”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
318“I was always comfortable”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
318“I just loved”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
318“pure gossip”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, November 22, 2020.
318“perverse result”: Steven Kreytak, “Roe v. Wade remains closed,” Austin American–Statesman, September 15, 2004.
319let a woman die: Henry Morton Robinson, The Cardinal (New York: Abrams, 1950), 88.
319the baby had died: Megan Rosenfeld, “Waging the New War of the Roses,” Washington Post, January 3, 1979.
319“No exceptions”: Emily Langer, “Nellie Gray, March for Life founder, dead at 88,” Washington Post, August 14, 2012.
319“They are trying”: “ ‘March for Life’ Rally,” CSPAN, January 24, 2005.
319Parker clapped wildly: “ ‘March for Life’ Rally.”
319“if one woman”: Muriel Rukeyser, “Käthe Kollwitz,” in The Speed of Darkness (New York: Random House, 1968).
319“change the abortion”: David Reardon, Making Abortion Rare: A Healing Strategy for a Divided Nation (Irvine, CA: Acorn, 1996), x.
320proposed a ban: “We find the testimonies of these women an important source of information about the way consents for abortions are taken, as well as many other matters relevant to the mandate given to this Task Force by HB 1233.” Report of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion – Submitted to the Governor and Legislature of South Dakota, December 5, 2005, Section II.A, 22.
320“While we find”: Gonzales v. Carhart, 127 S. Ct. 1610, 1634 (2007).
320a Parker amicus brief: The specific brief Kennedy cited was filed on behalf of Sandra Cano, the born-again Mary Doe of Doe v. Bolton, whom Parker represented along with Norma.
320“was a development”: Linda Greenhouse, “Adjudging a Moral Harm to Women from Abortions,” New York Times, April 20, 2007.
320“The [Operation] Outcry”: Reva B. Siegel, “The Right’s Reasons: Constitutional conflict and the spread of women-protective antiabortion argument,” Duke Law Journal, April 2008, 1641.
320“Norma McCorvey is patient”: Mary Ziegler, “What McCorvey Believed Matters,” Atlantic, May 31, 2020.
321“the logical culmination”: Schoen, Abortion After Roe, 20.
322the committee pay Mildred: Thea Rossi Barron, letter to David W. O’Steen, November 22, 1989. Courtesy of Thea Rossi Barron.
322There were robocalls: Mildred Jefferson, robocall recording. MJP, Box 22, Folder 4.
322“If he is not a child”: Commercial transcript. MJP, Box 22, Folder 4.
322There was a booklet: Robert L. Krebsbach, Abortion: Have We the Right? (Right to Life Crusade, Inc., 1984), vii.
322“Only rarely does pregnancy”: Right to Life Crusade, Inc., flier, undated. Courtesy of Kathleen Bothell.
323“matriarch”: Louis Prisock, “ ‘If You Love Children, Say So’: The African American Anti-Abortion Movement,” Public Eye, October 1, 2003.
323“to limit our population”: Spoken by Xavier Suarez, a Cuban-born activist, who sat on the panel beside Jefferson, Erma Craven, a black social worker, and Constance Redbird Uri, a Native American doctor. Their press conference was at the 1976 NRLC convention. “Leaders Answer Questions at Press Conference,” National Right to Life News 3 (August 1976).
323“racial overtones”: Harry A. Blackmun, preamble to Roe v. Wade.
323“Enforced motherhood”: Margaret Sanger, “Suppression,” Woman Rebel 1, no. 4 (June 1914).
323Fears of overpopulation: Wrote Sanger: “We who advocate Birth Control . . . lay all our emphasis upon stopping not only the reproduction of the unfit but upon stopping all reproduction when there is not economic means of providing proper care for those who are born in health.” Margaret Sanger, “Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” Birth Control Review, February 1919.
323“well-born”: Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (London: Macmillan, 1883).
323“Society has no business”: Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Charles Davenport, January 3, 1913, http://eugenics.us/letter-by-theodore-roosevelt-to-charles-davenport-society-should-not-permit-degenerates-to-reproduce-their-kind/176.htm.
323“criminals, idiots, imbeciles”: Laws of Indiana, 1907, Chapter 215, 377–78.
323Two dozen states followed: Paul A. Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 294, Appendix C.
323“It is better for all”: Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 205–207 (1927). It is important to note that the ruling was never overturned.
324granted the U.S. eugenicist: Harriet Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 194.
324“in the silence”: Paul Lombardo, interview with the author, August 1, 2019.
324would be robbed of the ability: Professor Lombardo notes that there are few official state tallies of the sterilizations. They were compiled by a political scientist in New York state named Julius Paul, who collected his findings in an 840–page unpublished manuscript titled “Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Enough: State Eugenic Sterilization Laws in American Thought and Practice.” The total number of sterilizations that Paul presented, 65,370, was a conservative estimate. Lombardo, “Three Generations,” 293–94.
324cited the Holmes opinion: “Karl Brandt defense documents,” 1946–47, Nuremberg Trials Project, no. 53, 122. Harvard Law School Library.
324“seeking to assist”: Sanger, “Birth Control and Racial Betterment.”
324“the feeble-minded”: Sanger, “Birth Control and Racial Betterment.”
324“Sanger did not tie”: Dorothy E. Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Vintage, 1999), 81.
324“fed, nurtured, and sustained”: Roberts, Killing the Black Body, 81.
324“about six out of ten”: DeNeen L. Brown, “Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer defied men—and presidents—who tried to silence her,” Washington Post, October 6, 2017.
324experimental surgeries: Sims performed the surgeries on approximately eleven women who had vesicovaginal fistulae. Washington, Medical Apartheid, 64.
324appropriation of black bodies: Washington, Medical Apartheid, 115–42.
324its notorious study of syphilis: DeNeen L. Brown, “ ‘You’ve got bad blood’: The horror of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment,” Washington Post, May 16, 2017.
324doctors could provide contraception: The case, United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, 86 F.2d 737 (2d Cir. 1936), was decided in 1936.
325“We do not want word”: Letter from Margaret Sanger to Dr. Clarence Gamble, December 10, 1939. Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
325“The mass of ignorant Negroes”: W. E. B. DuBois, “Black Folk and Birth Control,” Birth Control Review, June 1932, 166.
325“race suicide”: Julian Lewis, “Is Birth Control a Menace to Negroes?,” Jet, August 19, 1954.
325from Langston Hughes: Langston Hughes, “Population Explosion,” New York Post, December 10, 1965.
325to Dick Gregory: Dick Gregory, “My Answer to Genocide,” Ebony, October 1971.
325“black genocide”: The resolution passed at the 1967 National Conference on Black Power in Newark, NJ. Nathan Wright, “Black Power vs. Black Genocide,” Black Scholar, December 1969.
325“the unborn Black baby”: Erma Clardy Craven, “Abortion, Poverty and Black Genocide, Gifts to the Poor?,” in T. W. Hilgers and D. J. Horan, eds., Abortion and Social Justice (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1972), 231.
325birth control programs: William A. Darity and Castellano B. Turner, “Fears of Genocide Among Black Americans as Related to Age, Sex, and Religion,” American Journal of Public Health 63 (1973): 1029.
325“male rhetoric”: Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1970), 108.
32580 percent of black women: Donald J. Bogue, “Family Planning in Negro Ghettos of Chicago,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, April 1970, part 2, 283.
325“Negroes don’t want children”: Hannah Lees, “The Negro Response to Birth Control,” Reporter 34 (May 19, 1966): 46. Cited in Washington, Medical Apartheid, 200.
326twelve times more likely: Rachel Benson Gold, “Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past Be Prologue?,” Guttmacher Report on Public Policy 6, no. 1 (2003): 10.
326almost triple that: The number of white women, per 1,000 women in the population, having abortions was 11.9 in 1972, 13.7 in 1973, 15.6 in 1974, and 17.3 in 1975, while the corresponding number of nonwhite women having abortions was 21.9 in 1972, 32.7 in 1973, 41.9 in 1974, and 50.2 in 1975. “White” includes white Hispanics and “nonwhite” includes black and other races. But the effect on the data is negligible, says the abortion researcher Stanley Henshaw, because there were relatively few Hispanic women and women of other races in the U.S. in the 1970s. The CDC was the source for the total number of abortions in 1972, and the Guttmacher Institute was the source for the other years. The distribution by race was provided by the CDC. The rates for 1972 and 1975 are from Table 101 of the 1980 Statistical Abstract of the United States, and those from 1973 and 1974 were calculated by Henshaw.
326“The people who are fewer”: Charles B. Fancher, Jr., “Much in Common but Worlds Apart,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 23, 1978.
326Mildred continued to speak: Black History Month Symposium poster, 1985. MJP, F+D1.
326“I refuse to represent”: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Jennifer Donnally, September 22, 2010. Interviews of Jennifer M. Donnally, 2007–2012, MC1059, Box 60, CD 7. Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
326“bitterness”: FBI case file for Mildred Fay Jefferson, no. 161–HQ-9379, 36. Interview with Ruth Marin, March 13, 1973.
327“a political apartheid”: Renee Loth, “Jefferson in GOP Bid for Senate,” Boston Globe, February 12, 1990.
327“Social programs are killing”: Jefferson, “A New Iconoclast.”
327“self-indulgent”: Otile McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight Against Abortion,” Boston Sunday Globe, December 3, 1976.
327“I like someone else to carry”: McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight.”
327“the principle”: Mildred Jefferson, testimony, U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, hearing on “Abortion,” August 21, 1974, p. 14. 93rd Cong., 2nd sess.
327“ERA means abortion”: Phyllis Schlafly, “ERA means abortion and population shrinkage,” The Phyllis Schlafly Report, December 1974.
327many first-wave feminists: On July 8, 1869, on page 4 of the Revolution, a weekly feminist newspaper published by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an article titled “Marriage and Maternity” wrote of abortion: “no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed.” The next year, on October 8, 1870, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, a newspaper published by Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin, also decried abortion. “The truth of the matter is,” read an editorial on page 11, “that it is just as much a murder to destroy life in its embryonic condition, as it is to destroy it after the fully developed form is attained, for it is the self-same life that is taken.” The editorial indicated, however, that were abortion possible before the embryonic heart began beating, it would not be murder. This, though, was not possible, it asserted, as “modern science” taught that the heartbeat began at conception. We now know that the fetal heartbeat does not begin until twenty-two days after conception.
327“unearthed the political gold”: Tanya Melich, The Republican War Against Women: An Insider’s Report from Behind the Lines (New York: Random House, 2009).
327“These two issues”: Jill Lepore, These Truths (New York: Norton, 2018), 647.
328“a gray world”: Mildred Jefferson, “Lifelines from the President’s Desk,” National Right to Life News 4 (August 1977).
328“terrorists”: “Excerpts from Dr. Jefferson’s Speech at Houston,” National Right to Life News 5 (January 1978).
328“the essence and reasons”: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Jennifer Donnally, October 22, 2007.
328unlike 84 percent: In 1990, 84 percent of women at the end of their childbearing years had given birth. Gretchen Livingston, “They’re Waiting Longer, but U.S. Women Today More Likely to Have Children Today Than a Decade Ago,” Pew Research Center Analysis of Current Population Survey, January 18, 2018.
328“I wanted to ask her”: Russell Gary Heikkila, interview with the author, July 19, 2017.
328children would impede: Anne Fox, interview with the author, August 22, 2019.
328she’d been unable: Judie Brown, interview with the author, March 24, 2017.
328threatened to bring shame: Dr. Joseph Stanton, letter to Mildred Jefferson, November 10, 1993. MJP, Box 4, Folder 5.
328the word “formerly”: Dr. Joseph Stanton, letter to Mildred Jefferson, November 10, 1993. MJP, Box 4, Folder 5.
328turned personal: For more on the split between Dr. Jefferson and Dr. Stanton, see Mary Ziegler, After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 279, n. 67.
328“It is all too obvious”: Dr. Joseph Stanton, letter to Mildred Jefferson, November 10, 1993. MJP, Box 4, Folder 5.
328a working surgeon: “Black Conservatives Meet in Houston,” Issues and Views, Fall 1994.
328“I do what I do”: Judy Klemesrud, “Abortion in the Campaign: Methodist Surgeon Leads the Opposition,” New York Times, March 1, 1976.
329$9,071: Check from Mildred Jefferson to Cambridge French Trust, May 15, 1995. MJP, Box 3, Folder 8.
329Mildred had inherited: Kirthell Roberts (Mildred Jefferson’s cousin), interview with the author, August 23, 2019.
329to cover some of her rent: Anne Fox, interview with the author, August 22, 2019.
329parsing public data: Janet Pearson, “PCs Revolutionize Political Campaigning,” Tulsa World, October 26, 1992.
329wrote her landlord a check: Check from Mildred Jefferson to Cambridge French Trust, May 15, 1995. MJP, Box 3, Folder 8.
329“I don’t like”: RealAmerican93, “Can the Republic Be Saved—Dr Mildred Jefferson—Part 1,” YouTube, December 4, 2010.
329statement on abortion: Various, “The America We Seek: A Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern,” First Things, May 1996.
330a convention in Tampa: “American Life League Brings Pro-Life Leaders to Tampa Celebration,” American Life League, press release, October 8, 1997.
330steadily dropping: R. K. Jones, E. Witwer and J. Jerman, Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017 (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2019), https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-incidence-service-availability-us-2017.
330“somewhat more serious”: Molly Ivins, “ ‘This Right of Privacy,’ ” Texas Observer, February 16, 1973.
330Roe to 0.5: Tara C. Jatlaoui et al., “Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2015,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 67, no. SS-13 (2018): 1–45, Table 23.
330ended with just a few pills: Eric A. Schaff, Stephen L. Fielding, Carolyn Westhoff et al., “Vaginal Misoprostol Administered 1, 2, or 3 Days After Mifepristone for Early Medical Abortion,” Journal of the American Medical Association 284, no. 15 (October 18, 2000).
330slept just three hours: Robert Mears, “An Interview with Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson,” New England Correspondent clipping, 1984. MJP. Box 21, Folder 12.
330“more devastating to the U.S.”: American Life League, press release, January 22, 2002.
330“ASK FOR MONEY”: Mildred Jefferson, notes, undated. MJP.
330third most admired: Mildred trailed only Phyllis Schlafly and Nancy Reagan. Ira R. Allen, “Poll Says Reagan No Longer Most Admired Conservative,” UPI, September 22, 1981.
330nominated her for a position: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds., African American Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 448. The committee was the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protection. Michael McCarthy, “US Human Research Committee Draws Fire,” Lancet 361, no. 9352 (January 11, 2003).
331“Many aspects”: Gates and Higginbotham, African American Lives, 447.
331“She wanted to keep”: Kathleen Bothell, interview with the author, February 7, 2017.
331told a pro-life organization: “Mildred Fay Jefferson, MD,” American Feminist: Remarkable Pro-Life Women III 10, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 12.
331“on self-assigned sabbatical”: Mildred Jefferson, fax to the American Life League, August 4, 2003. MJP, Box 2, Folder 9.
331opposition to affirmative action: Mildred Jefferson, fax to the American Life League, August 4, 2003. MJP, Box 2, Folder 9.
331“American ideals”: “Establish Fund in Honor of Lt. Gutman,” Newton Graphic, February 8, 1945.
331“served the equivalent”: Mildred Jefferson, fax to the American Life League, August 4, 2003. MJP, Box 2, Folder 9.
331a chain of newspapers: Doug LeBlanc, “Jefferson Fighting for Rights of the Unborn,” Sunday Advocate (Baton Rouge), October 6, 1985.
331or be the dean: Jefferson, “A New Iconoclast.”
331“she was very eager”: Brendan O’Connell, interview with the author, August 2, 2019.
332repeat her own opinion: McManus, “Dr. Jefferson and her Fight.”
332“Those seven men”: Roger Resler, Compelling Interest: The Real Story Behind Roe v. Wade (Escondido, CA: eChristian, 2012), 136.
332landlord wrote to Mildred: Rene Mugnier, letter to Mildred Jefferson, October 27, 2003. MJP, Box 3, Folder 10.
332“the newspapers were piled up”: Dusty Maguire, interview with the author, October 31, 2019.
333“We all came to the conclusion”: Philip Moran, interview with the author, September 3, 2019.
333“We thought she”: Amy Baum, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
333“The only consolation”: Philip Moran, email to Anne Fox, June 8, 2007. MJP, Box 6, Folder 1.
333“She wasn’t interviewing”: Brendan O’Connell, interview with the author, August 14, 2019.
334“the whole family”: Vital Concerns, television program, Boston Neighborhood Network, October 1, 2009.
334“no nuances”: Anne Fox, interview with the author, August 22, 2019.
335“I went to Public”: Dusty Maguire, interview with the author, October 31, 2019.
335“I don’t think anyone”: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Jennifer Donnally, September 22, 2010.
335“literally, literally, literally”: Mildred Jefferson, interview with Jennifer Donnally, September 22, 2010.
335“genes from the plains”: Vital Concerns, television program, Boston Neighborhood Network, October 7, 2010.
335“There is nothing dignified”: Vital Concerns, television program, Boston Neighborhood Network, November 5, 2009.
336“like a leaf”: Anne Fox, interview with the author, August 22, 2019.
336“a beautiful, articulate, educated”: Thea Rossi Barron, eulogy for Mildred Jefferson, November 26, 2010. Courtesy of Thea Rossi Barron.
336“the perfect, the privileged”: Dennis Hevesi, “Mildred Jefferson, 84, Anti-Abortion Activist, Is Dead,” New York Times, October 18, 2010.
337traded to Harvard: Anne Fox, email to the author, October 2, 2019.
337“books, papers, periodicals”: Divorce ruling, January 16, 1981. NMP.
337heart disease the probable cause: “Probable Cardiac Dysrhythmia Medical Due to Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease.” Certificate of death: Mildred Fay Jefferson, filed October 26, 2010, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Dept of Public Health Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, R 351456.
338its highest award: Cynthia Gorney, “Abortion Providers Meet to Honor Peers,” Washington Post, May 9, 1990.
338Boyd simply rescheduled: Curtis Boyd, “The Morality of Abortion: The Making of a Feminist Physician,” St. Louis University Public Law Review 13 (1993–94): 303–14.
338“a good and moral”: “Prepared Statement of Curtis Boyd, M.D., Santa Fe, NM,” in Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives: One Hundred First Congress, First and Second Sessions. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1994), 83.
339law review article: Boyd, “The Morality of Abortion.”
339“I don’t like”: Henry Eisenberg and Howard Eisenberg, Night Calls: The Personal Journey of an Ob-Gyn (New York: Berkley, 1988), 129.
339“rare”: Bill Clinton, remarks accepting the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August 29, 1996. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-accepting-the-presidential-nomination-the-democratic-national-convention-chicago.
339“I have often paused”: Voices of Choice: Physicians Who Provided Abortions Before Roe v. Wade, film, created by Physicians for Reproductive Health, Fly on the Wall Productions, 2003.
339“the potential to become”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
339“There is no possibility”: Warren M. Hern and Billie Corrigan, “What About Us? Staff Reactions to D & E,” Advances in Planned Parenthood 15, no. 1 (1980): 7.
339“a small arm”: Cynthia Gorney, Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 300.
339“blind spot”: “A Weekend Without War Over the Abortion Issue,” New York Times, June 3, 1996.
339“in order to terminate”: Christopher Hitchens, “Minority Report,” Nation, April 24, 1989.
340“freedom to abort”: Judith Wilt, Abortion, Choice, and Contemporary Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), xii.
340“abortion is always”: Andrew Sullivan, “Life Lesson,” New Republic, February 7, 2005.
340“I have always frankly”: Camille Paglia, “Fresh Blood for the Vampire,” Salon, September 10, 2008.
340“Intellectually, I thought”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
340“She has the ultimate right”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
340carried the additional horrible risk: Dena Kleiman, “When Abortion Becomes Birth: A Dilemma of Medical Ethics Shaken by New Advances,” New York Times, February 15, 1984.
340“I love my work”: Gorney, “Abortion Providers Meet to Honor Peers.”
340“I really had arrived”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
340“You have to always”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 3, 2017.
341“You were either”: Joffe interviewed Boyd in 1988. Carole E. Joffe, Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and After Roe v. Wade (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 153.
341give him a pseudonym: Joffe called Boyd “David Bennett.”
341Two companies on Wall Street: The companies were Diversified Medical Corp. and Comprehensive Education Systems, Inc. Howard Eisenberg, “The Mad Scramble for Abortion Money,” Medical Economics, January 4, 1971, 991–97.
341upped by a third: Eisenberg quotes one doctor saying: “By the way, my fee is no longer $200—it’s now $275.” Eisenberg, “The Mad Scramble for Abortion Money.”
341capped the cost: Eisenberg, “The Mad Scramble for Abortion Money.”
341cost three or four times: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, March 7, 2017.
341$200,000: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 23, 2019.
341his larger clinics: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 4, 2019.
341threat to her mental health: Both United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), defined “health” to include both physical and psychological well-being. Roe v. Wade, Section X, allowed third-trimester abortions.
341seven states: Those seven states are Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Vermont.
342died in a plane crash: Judy L. Thomas and David Klepper, “Life Experiences Shaped Tiller’s Career,” Wichita Eagle, June 7, 2009.
342to take it over: David Barstow, “An Abortion Battle, Fought to the Death,” New York Times, July 25, 2009.
342“The only [thing] worse”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health Project, 2001, 3. Oral History Archives, Columbia University.
342His patients explained: Judy Lundstrom Thomas, “Tiller: Tired but Determined,” Wichita Eagle, September 8, 1991.
342“equal in magnitude”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 6.
342“I can remember the terror”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 7.
343vowed to be better prepared: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 7–8.
343“It is that invitation”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller , 26.
343“My practice just went”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 10.
343used a baseball: Cathy Reavis, interview with the author, March 8, 2019.
343“He did say”: Cathy Reavis, interview with the author, March 8, 2019.
343“particularly with fetal abnormality”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 10.
343“He started ordering”: Cathy Reavis, interview with the author, March 8, 2019.
343“I can’t do it”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
343injecting into the fetal heart: Among the doctors pioneering the use of digoxin was Dr. Paul Wright of Oakland. Dr. Warren M. Hern was among the first to use urea as described in his paper “Serial multiple laminaria and adjunctive urea in late out-patient dilation and evacuation abortion,” Obstetrics and Gynecology 63 (1984): 543–49.
344“The concept that you”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, March 13, 2019.
344“even if it’s ironic”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, March 13, 2019.
344more humane: JoAn Armentrout, interview with the author, March 8, 2019.
344using an ultrasound machine: Cathy Reavis, interview with the author, March 8, 2019.
344“The patient wasn’t maimed”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 10.
344using the forty-week model: Katie Watson, Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 149.
344“The Roe framework”: Justice O’Connor wrote in dissent in the case City of Akron v. Akron Center of Reproductive Health, 462 U.S. 416 (1983).
344“initially desired”: Barbara Vobejda and David Brown, “Harsh Details Shift Tenor of Abortion Fight,” Washington Post, September 17, 1996.
345“Dr. George Tiller”: Minutes, Meeting of the Medical Advisory and Education Committee of the National Abortion Federation, Dallas, TX, March 16, 1985. Takey Crist Papers (series “Abortion”), Sally Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, file NAF 1985, Duke University.
345to refer complaints: Minutes, Meeting of the Medical Advisory and Education Committee of the National Abortion Federation.
345do not recall: Glenna Boyd, interview with the author, March 15, 2019.
345“public perception”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, March 13, 2019.
345“He just felt”: JoAn Armentrout, interview with the author, March 8, 2019.
345“If I’m not”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 15.
345an arrest for driving drunk: Tiller did his rehab at the Ridgeview Institute in Smyrna, Georgia. David Barstow, “An Abortion Battle, Fought to the Death,” New York Times, July 25, 2009.
345four days: Devin Friedman, “Savior vs. Savior,” GQ, January 8, 2010.
346“ministry”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 30.
346at that point: Lundstrom Thomas, “Tiller: Tired but Determined.”
346“Nature makes mistakes”: Lundstrom Thomas, “Tiller: Tired but Determined.”
346Two in five abortions: Carole Joffe, “Working with Dr. Tiller: Staff Recollections of Women’s Health Care Services of Wichita,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 43, no. 3 (September 2011): 199–204.
346“readily treatable”: Barstow, “An Abortion Battle.”
346“many were perfectly healthy”: Barstow, “An Abortion Battle.”
346a second doctor: 2006 Kansas Code – 65-6703.
346“Babies and families”: Lundstrom Thomas, “Tiller: Tired but Determined.”
346“personalize the struggle”: Risen and Thomas, Wrath of Angels, 320.
346“the nation’s pre-eminent”: Barstow, “An Abortion Battle.”
347“Dr. Tiller was”: JoAn Armentrout, interview with the author, March 8, 2019.
347NAF honored Tiller: The Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award.
347one in a thousand: In 1992, 0.1 percent of abortions were performed in the third trimester. Gina Kolata, “In Late Abortions, Decisions Are Painful and Options Few,” New York Times, January 5, 1992. Because the numbers of third-trimester abortions are so small, they’re typically reported collectively by the CDC as all abortions performed at 21 weeks or later. As of 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, exactly 1 percent of abortions occurred after 20 weeks. Tara C. Jatlaoui et al., “Abortion surveillance – United States, 2018,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 69, no. SS-7 (2020): 1–29, Table 9.
347including Randall Terry: “It’s a matter of self-defense,” he says. Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 28, 2019.
347agreed that a woman: 75 percent of people surveyed in 2003 (and in 2018) believe abortion ought to be legal even in the third trimester when a woman’s “life is endangered.” Lydia Saad, “Trimesters Still Key to U.S. Abortion Views,” Gallup, June 13, 2018.
347half the country agreed: 48 percent of people surveyed in 2003 (and in 2018) believe abortion ought to be legal even in the third trimester when a child will be “born with a life-threatening illness.” Saad, “Trimesters Still Key.”
347nine had had nothing wrong: David Brown, “Late Term Abortions,” Washington Post, September 17, 1996.
347“everything that was right”: JoAn Armentrout, interview with the author, March 24, 2019.
347patient was the woman: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 11.
347“simply want non-judgmental”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 22.
347with the alcoholic: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 24.
348more easily delivered: Kolata, “In Late Abortions.”
348disbursed it widely: Vobejda and Brown, “Harsh Details Shift Tenor.”
348“as close to infanticide”: Vobejda and Brown, “Harsh Details Shift Tenor.”
348the fetus fell into a coma: Dr. McMahon stated in a letter to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, June 23, 1995, that, owing to the anesthesia given the woman, “a medical coma is induced in the fetus” which in turn causes “a neurological fetal demise.” U.S. House of Representatives, debate on Senate Amendments to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997, H.R. 1833, March 27, 1996. 104th Cong., 2nd sess. Congressional Record 142, part 44.
348minor relief of pain: Dr. Norig Ellison stated in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, November 22, 1995, that the anesthesia administered to the woman “will provide no-to-little analgesia to the fetus.” U.S. House of Representatives, debate on Senate Amendments to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997, H.R. 1833, March 27, 1996. 104th Cong., 2nd sess. Congressional Record 142, part 44.
348“That’s what changed”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
349“woman as womb”: Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: Norton, 1976).
349Justice Byron White lamented: Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976) (Justice White, dissenting).
349John Willke spoke: John Willke, memo to NRLC, February 21, 1978. Cited in Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, “Antiabortion, Antifeminism, and the Rise of the New Right,” Feminist Studies 7, no. 2 (Summer 1981): 221.
349sign of a protester: Eleanor Mayfield, “Focus on . . . Curtis Boyd, MD,” World: The Journal of the Unitarian Universalist Association 6 no. 2 (March/April 1992): 43.
349Albuquerque clinic ablaze: T. J. Wilham, “Arson Fire Damages Doctor’s Office,” Albuquerque Journal, December 8, 2007. Scott Sandin, “2 Sentenced in Abortion Clinic Torching,” Albuquerque Journal, June 11, 2009.
349“I don’t know what”: From Danger to Dignity, film, directed by Dorothy Fadiman, Concentric Media, 1995.
349“arbitrary” cutoff: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, September 1, 2016.
349“artificial barrier”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
349“Last week”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
349“I felt philosophically”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 4, 2019.
350“I thought I’d”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 4, 2019.
350“Dr. Warren Hern and myself”: Reminiscences of Dr. George Tiller, 41.
350one and a half million: Barstow, “An Abortion Battle.”
35038 percent: Barstow, “An Abortion Battle.”
350“The most famous person”: Friedman, “Savior vs. Savior.”
350he was also despised: “The Tiller Report II: A Shocking Exposé on America’s Most Infamous Late-Term Abortionist,” Operation Rescue report, 2006.
350Nazi doctor: Stephanie Simon, “Protestors who Push the Limits,” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2004.
351“execut[e] convicted murderers”: Wrote Newman: “When moms, dads, abortionists are added together, well over 100,000,000 people bear personal bloodguilt for at least one abortion. The doctrine of community bloodguilt found in Scripture further implicates the entire nation. The perpetrators are far too numerous and the bloodguilt has spread too far. We deserve God’s judgment.
“In addition to our personal guilt in abortion, the United States government has abrogated its responsibility to properly deal with the blood-guilty. This responsibility rightly involves executing convicted murderers, including abortionists, for their crimes in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people.” Troy Newman, Their Blood Cries Out (Wichita, KS: Restoration Press, 2003), 165–66.
351“that his conduct”: Troy Newman and Cheryl Sullenger, “Execution of Paul Hill Nothing Less than Murder,” Operation Rescue West and California Life Coalition, press release, September 3, 2003.
351“violence will never, never”: Simon, “Protestors who Push the Limits.”
351“pain and unpleasantness”: Scheidler spoke at a pro-life convention in Appleton, WI, which convened April 11–13, 1985. Holy Terror, film, directed by Victoria Schultz, Hudson River Productions/Helsinki Films, 1986.
351a House subcommittee: Abortion Clinic Violence: Oversight Hearings before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee of the Judiciary House of Representatives, 99th Cong., May 6, 1985.
351“from the guy”: Kimberley Sevcik, “One Man’s God Squad: Troy Newman’s plan to stop abortions in Wichita, Kansas,” Rolling Stone, July 29, 2004.
351“I want these employees”: Sevcik, “One Man’s God Squad.”
351“If I could get my hands”: Bill O’Reilly, “George Tiller Update,” The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly, Fox News Radio, November 6, 2006.
351“What I found out”: Amy Goodman, “Dr. George Tiller (1941–2009): Murdered Abortion Provider Remembered for Lifelong Dedication to Women’s Reproductive Health,” Democracy Now, WBAI, June 1, 2009.
352shot him dead: David S. Cohen and Krysten Connon, Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 1.
352lunch with Troy Newman: Amanda Robb, “Not A Lone Wolf,” Ms., June 4, 2010.
352“Something like if”: Robb, “Not A Lone Wolf.”
352would liken Tiller: Roeder wrote the post on September 3, 2007, on the Operation Rescue site ChargeTiller.com. Judy L. Thomas, “Suspect in Tiller’s Death Supported Killing Abortion Providers, Friends Say,” Kansas City Star, May 31, 2009.
352“justice had not been served”: Laura Bauer and Judy L. Thomas, “Operation Rescue Adviser Helped Tiller Suspect Track Doctor’s Court Dates,” Kansas City Star, June 3, 2009.
353Barack Obama: The president issued a two-sentence statement: “I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.” Barack Obama, “Statement from the President on the Murder of Dr. George Tiller,” May 31, 2009. Office of the Press Secretary, White House Archives.
353“George Tiller was a mass-murderer”: Matthew Hay Brown, “Killing of George Tiller: Faith-Based Reactions,” Baltimore Sun, June 1, 2009.
353“an angry post-abortive man”: Brown, “Killing of George Tiller.”
353police pulled him over: Thomas, “Suspect in Tiller’s Death.”
353a piece of paper: Bauer and Thomas, “Operation Rescue Adviser Helped.”
353“justifiable defensive action”: Newman and Sullenger, “Execution of Paul Hill Nothing Less than Murder.”
353“peaceful and legal”: “Operation Rescue Statement Regarding Suspect in Tiller Killing,” Christian Newswire, June 1, 2009.
353didn’t recall: Robb, “Not a Lone Wolf.”
353“abortion fatigue”: Robin Abcarian, “Slain Abortion Doctor George Tiller’s Clinic to Close,” Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2009.
353bloodied carpet: Friedman, “Savior vs. Savior.”
353widow sang a prayer: David Barstow, “Kansas Doctor Remembered as Devoted to Family and Women,” New York Times, June 6, 2009.
353moved to a vault: Underground Vaults & Storage, Hutchinson, KS.
353‘What are we going to do’: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 18, 2019.
354“miscalculation”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
354“pleading”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 23, 2019.
354“induced anxiety”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 18, 2019.
354“You’re thinking”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 18, 2019.
354“you got to twenty-seven”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
354“represented an inconsistency”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 18, 2019.
355“I think the reason”: After Tiller, film, directed by Martha Shane and Lana Wilson, Code Red Pictures, 2013.
355“Appointments for late abortions”: Robin Abcarian and Michael Haederle, “Abortion Doctors Filling in for Tiller,” Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2010.
355“late-term abortion capital”: “Abortion Capital: Boyd & Co. Turn Albuquerque into the Late-term Abortion Capital of the World,” Operation Rescue report, April 27, 2010.
355to stand outside: Leslie Linthicum, “Anti-Abortion Group Targets New Mexico,” Albuquerque Journal, November 21, 2010.
355among the four largest: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 18, 2019.
355urged Congress to codify: U.S. House of Representatives, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., January 3, 1973.
355“to the extent”: Roe v. Wade, Section X.
356“there were rumors”: Ivins, “ ‘This Right of Privacy.’ ”
356passed fifty-eight bills: Donald T. Critchlow, Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 200.
356restrictions that ranged: Elizabeth Nash, Senior State Issues Manager, Guttmacher Institute, email to the author, September 20, 2019.
356“an open invitation”: The ruling, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989), upheld a state ban on the use of public resources for abortion. Roger Rosenblatt, Life Itself: Abortion in the American Mind (New York: Random House, 1992), 13, 14.
356two of eighty-four: Brian D. Sweany, “A Long and Bitter Fight,” Texas Monthly, March 2014.
356nearly triple the number: “Laws Affecting Reproductive Health and Rights: 2011 State Policy Review,” Guttmacher Institute, 2012, https://www.guttmacher.org/laws-affecting-reproductive-health-and-rights-2011-state-policy-review.
356“in terms acceptable”: Hilgers and Horan, eds., Abortion and Social Justice, ix.
356asserting the personhood: Charles E. Rice, Brief of Americans United for Life as Amicus Curiae in Support of Appellee, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
356“that the unborn child”: Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 (720 ILCS 510/).
356“There’s a spectrum”: Clarke Forsythe, interview with the author, May 16, 2019.
357brought to the House floor: Mimi Swartz, “Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives,” Texas Monthly, August 2012.
3570.6 deaths per 100,000: E. G. Raymond and D. A. Grimes, “The Comparative Safety of Legal Induced Abortion and Childbirth in the United States,” Obstetrics and Gynecology 119, no. 2, part 1 (February 2012): 215–19.
357“legally, financially, emotionally”: Carol Sanger, About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in Twenty-First-Century America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), xi.
357only hospitals: The Woman’s Right to Know Act, Texas Health & Safety Code § 171.004.
357must have admitting privileges: Sweany, “A Long and Bitter Fight.”
357point of pride: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, May 3, 2017.
358would shutter more than half: Caitlin Gerdts et al., “Impact of Clinic Closures on Women Obtaining Abortion Services After Implementation of a Restrictive Law in Texas,” AJPH Research 106, no. 5 (May 2016): 857.
358philosophical arguments: See Watson, Scarlet A, ch. 4.
358Court should have fixed: Much of the pro-life community has advocated an abortion ban at twenty weeks—when, they assert, the fetus begins to feel pain. Their claims rest on the research of Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, a professor at Stanford University Medical Center, but the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has stated that the fetus is unlikely to feel pain until the start of the third trimester, at roughly twenty-nine weeks. The scientist Carl Sagan proposed that abortion remain legal until roughly thirty weeks, when, he wrote, “the beginning of characteristically human thinking becomes barely possible.” But others, including the prominent Swedish pediatrician, Dr. Hugo Lagercrantz, have written that the fetus is “potentially conscious” at roughly twenty-four weeks with “the activation of the cortex by thalamocortical connections.” Annie Murphy Paul, “The First Ache,” New York Times Magazine, February 10, 2008. Olga Khazan, “When Did Fetal Pain Become Pro-Life Strategy,” Atlantic, November 18, 2013. Carl Sagan, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (New York: Random House, 2011), 212. Nelly Padilla and Hugo Lagercrantz, “Making of the Mind,” Acta Paediatrica 109, no. 5 (May 2020): 883–92.
358“the right to life”: Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (1971): 47–66.
358“have an acceptable”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
358“LATE-TERM: REFUSE”: The folder is viewable in one scene of the film After Tiller.
359performed nearly every: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 18, 2019.
359“trying to reconcile”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, April 4, 2019.
359“With breath”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, February 13, 2019.
359“I am in the extreme”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, January 21, 2015.
359philosopher Porphyry: Porphyry: To Gaurus on How Embryos Are Ensouled and On What Is in Our Power, translated by James Wilberding (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011), 31–56.
359“The pregnancy”: Curtis Boyd, speech in Bogotá, October 9, 2014. Courtesy of Curtis Boyd.
360“historical footnote”: Diane Jennings, “Legal Eagle: The woman who helped make history with Roe,” Dallas Morning News, July 29, 1990.
360“hostile”: Notes of reporter Joseph N. Bell. Courtesy of Bell’s widow, Sherry Angel.
360“She hid her brilliance”: Molly Bartholow, interview with the author, February 18, 2018.
360“Linda and Sarah Weddington”: Molly Bartholow, interview with the author, February 16, 2018.
361a violation of rule: The rule reads: “A lawyer shall not engage in the practice of law when the lawyer is on inactive status or when the lawyer’s right to practice has been suspended or terminated, including but not limited to situations where a lawyer’s right to practice has been administratively suspended for failure to timely pay required fees or assessments or for failure to comply with Article XII of the State Bar Rules relating to Mandatory Continuing Legal Education.”
361A spokesperson for the Bar: Claire Reynolds, Public Affairs Counsel, Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, State Bar of Texas, interview with the author, September 22, 2020.
361Coffee had fallen behind: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, January 23, 2014.
361filed for Chapter 13: U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, case number 3:93bk35699.
361“They came in”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
361“I would just be”: Dr. Kazia Luszczynska, psychiatric assessment of Linda Coffee, Metrocare Services, September 18, 2007. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
362“She talked to herself”: Peggy Clewis, interview with the author, September 13, 2016.
362“She was almost”: Molly Bartholow, interview with the author, February 18, 2018.
362named Weddington its Humanitarian: Robert Miller, “Planned Parenthood Luncheon Is Today,” Dallas Morning News, January 23, 2003.
362“a wife is to submit”: Southern Baptist Convention, “The Baptist Faith and Message,” 1998. Hamil R. Harris, “Baptist Call for Submissive Wives Criticized,” Washington Post, June 12, 1998.
362“pathological, abnormal”: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Homosexual Marriage,” June 1, 1996.
363“a human being”: Southern Baptist Convention, 2005c “Statement on Sanctity of Life,” 2010.
363“I have always considered”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
363at odds with a car dealer: Lacinetta Coxson, interview with the author, June 12, 2019. The case was Ebbets Partners II, Ltd. v. Derrick Coxson and Lacinetta Lynn Johnson AKA Lacinetta Lynn Coxson, Case no. GC-2005–00531. Filed March 18, 2005, Texas District Court, Denton County.
363“fundamental human freedom”: Sarah Weddington, A Question of Choice (London: Penguin, 1993), 72.
363Hartt drank too much: Police report, Dallas Police Department, July 26, 2006. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
363“harassed Linda”: Peggy Clewis, interview with the author, September 13, 2016.
363“slow to anger”: Police report, Dallas Police Department, July 26, 2006. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
363“economics”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
363“assaulted” Hartt: State of Texas v. Linda Coffee, Cause no. M06–720–60, “Notice of State’s Intent to Use 404(B) Evidence.”
363assault her partner twice: Police reports, Dallas Police Department, July 17, 2006, and July 26, 2006. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
363“I’m a lesbian”: Mary Carter, interview with the author, May 28, 2019.
363“no food, no electricity”: Police report, Dallas Police Department, July 26, 2006. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
363her mother had likened: June Hartt, letter to Rebecca Hartt, August 26, 1989. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
364“possible underlying psychopathology”: Dr. Kazia Luszczynska, psychiatric assessment of Linda Coffee, Metrocare Services, September 18, 2007. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
364an oil painting they found: The painting was Winds on the Lake, Lake Michigan by Miles Jefferson Early. Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
364Coffee and her sister: Dallas County et al. v. Linda Nellene Coffee, et al., Suit no. TX-07–30734.
364answered an ad: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
364“hard stick”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
364Coffee did so: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
364“Here is the Roe”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, January 23, 2014.
364“braggadocio”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.
364“With very little resources”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
365“I think it would have raised”: Terry Woster, “Abortion fight keys on S.D.,” Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), November 9, 2008.
365eighty-six dollars: Royalty check from NBC. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
365He and his mother: Scott Jackson, interview with the author, May 31, 2019.
365dubbed her “banker”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 4, 2014.
365She and Hartt got by: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, January 23, 2014.
365Home in their little: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, January 23, 2014.
366“the sister and Linda”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 5, 2014.
366kept her bloodied shirt: Lifting the shirt, Hartt said: “This is my blood, my trophy for being a loyal person.” Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
366“little love”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, January 23, 2014.
366a long hike: Rebecca Hartt, letter to the author, November 2014.
366preparing eggplant and lamb: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
366an absentee ballot sent from: “pd pol ad Conservative Republicans of Texas,” February 2014. Courtesy of Rebecca Hartt.
366her face in a mural: Equal Justice Under Law by J. William Myers.
366“She asked me”: Linda Coffee, interview with the author, February 6, 2014.
367“Though the fig tree”: Rebecca Hartt, interview with the author, February 5, 2014. Habakkuk 3:17–18 (NKJV).
368“masochistic”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, December 13, 2016.
368the same mental space: Roe vs. Roe, film.
368occasional public appearance: “Canticle Talks . . . with Norma McCorvey,” Canticle, Winter 2000.
368“are very unstable”: Norma McCorvey, letter to the Resource Center of Dallas, July 8, 1999. Courtesy of Janie Bush.
369“the hardest thing”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
369Norma still avoided weddings: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 30, 2018.
369the turpitude of men: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 26, 2018.
369raising a fourth: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, October 25, 2018.
369people only cared to know: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
369to look after Norma: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
369“deep, deep depression”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, August 20, 2020.
370showed Havlik the razor: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
370“Christian principles”: Articles of Incorporation of Roe No More Ministry, Inc., Article IV.1, November 12, 1997. NMP.
370“acted gay”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 26, 2018.
370decades with Connie: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 26, 2018.
370Norma was at the wheel: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
370her “goddaughter”: North Dallas Rehabilitation Hospital, Discharge Instructions, July 30, 2004. NMP.
370“needs to hurry up”: Utah Foster, interview with the author, February 1, 2019.
370“She started drinking”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
370$62,000: IRS communications, 2001, 2002, 2003. NMP.
371a temporary bump: IRS communication, 2004. NMP. Norma earned $34,000 in 2004.
371“The Lord came upon”: Hector Ferrer, interview with the author, July 25, 2018.
371“I’m hanging it up”: Hector Ferrer, interview with the author, July 25, 2018.
371“one hundred percent”: Hector Ferrer, interview with the author, July 25, 2018.
372“I lost it”: Hector Ferrer, interview with the author, July 25, 2018.
372$15,000 all year: In 2005, Norma reported income of $14,827. NMP.
372food stamps: NMP.
372“We’ve got a little”: Katie Fairbank, “For ‘Roe,’ Trials Out of Court: Dallas plaintiff in ’73 abortion case struggles to make ends meet,” Dallas Morning News, January 12, 2006.
372Connie’s family was aghast: Mary Helen Sandoval (Connie’s niece), interview with the author, October 4, 2011.
372Norma believed they were hungry: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
372“Whether I was right”: Michelle Green and Lois Armstrong, “The Woman Behind Roe v. Wade,” People, May 22, 1989.
372“I just started”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
373Connie refused to leave: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 6, 2018.
373hundreds faced off in Jackson: Sarah Olson, “Last Stand for Choice in Mississippi,” Making Contact, October 25, 2006.
373and a Koran: Jean Gordon, “Anti-Abortionists’ Burning of Quran Called ‘Hateful,’ ” Clarion–Ledger (Jackson, MS), July 20, 2006.
373“the majority of abortionists”: WVIT, “Connecticut News-makers,” July 16, 1989. Cited in Susan Weidman Schneider, “The Anti-Choice Movement: Bad News for Jews,” Lilith, Summer 1990.
373“the words and deeds”: Terry first wrote of Islam in 2001 in a booklet he titled “The Crescent Terror.” In the course of earning an online masters degree in 2011 from Norwich University, in both diplomacy and international terrorism, he wrote a paper titled “Words and Deeds of Muhammad” in which he argued, he says, that “Islamic terrorists . . . are imitating the example and following the orders of [Islam’s] founder, Muhammad.” Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 30, 2019.
373boycott of Disney: Lesley Clark and Lenny Savino, “Disney Protest Brings 3 Arrests,” Orlando Sentinel, December 30, 1997.
373white supremacist newspaper: The Jubilee was a bimonthly based in Midpines, CA.
373“overtly anti-Semitic”: Carol Mason, Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 185.
373“Is it not likely”: “An Association of Priests for the Pro-Life Cause,” Priests for Life, cited in Catholics for a Free Choice, “Faithless Politics: Priests for Life Defies Constitution and Conscience,” August 2006.
374secured fifteen men: Joshua Mercer, “Father Pavone Eyes Pro-life Religious Order,” National Catholic Register, June 11–17, 2000, cited in Catholics for a Free Choice, “Faithless Politics.”
374Cardinal Edward Egan: “Father Pavone Asked to Leave Priests for Life,” EWTN Pro-Family News, September 10, 2001. Cited in Catholics for a Free Choice, “Faithless Politics.”
374“We are shocked”: “Father Pavone Asked to Leave.”
374“continuing to negotiate”: “Father Pavone Asked to Leave.”
374to back the Iraq war: Catholics for a Free Choice, “Faithless Politics.”
374if he found a bishop: Daniel Burke, “Priest Scraps Plans for Anti-Abortion Society of Priests,” Religion News Service, September 24, 2008.
374$130 million seminary: Karen Smith Welch, “Records Reveal Growing Tensions Between Pavone, Bishop,” Amarillo Globe–News, October 15, 2011.
374where forty-nine parishes: Terry Mattingly, “Texas Priest Speaks for Life,” Knoxville News–Sentinel, January 28, 2006. Cited in Catholics for a Free Choice, “Faithless Politics.”
374“guerilla group”: George McKenna, “Criss-Cross: Democrats, Republicans, and Abortion,” Human Life Review, Summer/Fall 2006.
374“He’s naive”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
374“She walked away”: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, May 31, 2018.
374God Himself: “Canticle Talks . . . with Norma McCorvey.”
374“the catalyst”: “Fr. Frank A. Pavone: National Director, Priests for Life and Missionaries of the Gospel of Life,” priestsforlife.org.
374“not to be seen”: Norma McCorvey, email to Karen Garnett, March 18, 2004. NMP.
375beseeching them: Norma McCorvey, email to Karen Garnett, March 18, 2004. NMP.
375“no one who is pro-life”: “Statement from Bishop Patrick J. Zurek,” Roman Catholic Diocese of Amarillo, November 8, 2016.
375the realities of Roe: Catholic News Service, “Father Pavone Affirms Continuing Pro-Life Involvement,” National Catholic Register, December 9–15, 2001. Cited in Catholics for a Free Choice, “Faithless Politics.”
375what lay before her: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
376transporting aborted fetuses: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
376“in a matter”: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, February 1, 2019.
37690 percent: S. K. Henshaw and J. Van Vort, eds., Abortion Factbook, 1992 Edition: Readings, Trends and State and Local Data to 1988 (New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1992), Table 5.
376they wished to be transparent: Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, February 1, 2019.
376pathology labs: According to Taft, only in rare instances of fetal abnormality did abortion clinics pay pathology labs to examine fetal tissue. Otherwise, the clinics simply paid the labs to incinerate the tissue or send it to a waste management company. Charlotte Taft, interview with the author, February 1, 2019.
376“To hold a memorial”: UPI, “Fetus Memorial Service Is Endorsed by Reagan,” New York Times, May 27, 1982.
376Court of Appeals agreed: Gene Blake, “Appeal Court Bars Disputed Plan to Bury 16,000 Fetuses,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1984.
377“16,000 Faces”: Bob Baker, “Several Hundred Anti-Abortionists Attend Service for Fetuses,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1985.
377ordered that the embryos: T. W. McGarry, “County Orders Burial of Controversial Fetuses,” Los Angeles Times, August 28, 1985.
377“Just as the terrible toll”: T. W. McGarry, “Fetuses Buried—With Hymns, Prayers,” Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1985.
377staged funerals: Schoen, Abortion after Roe, 155–57.
377a blackened fetal body: Jack Jones and Andrea Ford, “350 Arrested for Abortion Protest,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1989.
377pieced it back together: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, January 29, 2019.
377“bizarre and fetishistic”: Carol Vinzant, “Fetus Frenzy,” Spy, May 1993.
377“transformed remains”: Schoen, Abortion After Roe, 159, 160.
377an aborted male fetus: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 16, 2019.
377“reminded me that”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 19, 2019.
378“He had a source”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378“figure out”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378photograph of the priest: Pavone welcomed me to his office on January 2, 2013.
378“They’d welcome me”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 16, 2019.
378“medical specimen”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378“They didn’t know”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378“Who was this baby”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378“Very often a baby”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378how many minutes: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378“was like holding”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378“Father Frank had charge”: Patricia McEwen, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
378Pavone disputes: Frank Pavone, email to the author, January 16, 2021.
379bury it, months later: Joshua Cogswell and Leah Rupp, “Abortion Protestors Hold Memorial for Fetus at Park,” Clarion–Ledger (Jackson, MS), July 20, 2006.
379She did not attend: Cogswell and Rupp, “Abortion Protestors Hold Memorial.”
379continued to partner: “Sam Brownback Features Norma McCorvey from Abortion Case at Straw Poll,” LifeNews.com, August 8, 2007.
379weepily rue Roe in films: Whatever Happened to Jane Roe? was a 2006 documentary made by the Veritas Forum, a Christian nonprofit serving college students.
379“the one thing”: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, January 14, 2019.
379“about adult things”: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, February 24, 2019.
379approached the altar: The church was St. Maria Goretti in Scottsdale.
379approached and prophesied: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, February 24, 2019.
379“an instrument of positiveness”: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, February 24, 2019.
380just $11,000: IRS communication, 2007. NMP.
380“enraptured”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
380“unconscious cruelty”: Fred Bronson, The Billboard Book of Number One Hits, fifth edition (New York: Billboard Books, 2003), 229.
380native Mississippian: Margie Casey, interview with the author, June 26, 2018.
381four abortions: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
381“that the source”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
381“I want to apologize”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
381she phoned Vinzant: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, August 26, 2020.
382It was a climax: Hector Ferrer, interview with the author, July 25, 2018.
382word of the event spread: Christian Newswire, “Norma McCorvey Former ‘Roe’ in Roe vs. Wade Will Be Making a Special Appearance in Wayne, NJ,” October 8, 2007.
382“frantic”: Hector Ferrer, interview with the author, January 22, 2019.
382“Much Love”: Norma McCorvey, letter to Connie Gonzalez, August 24, 2007. NMP.
382“I did get a couple”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 7, 2018.
382police came: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
382“She would always say”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
383“She looked like”: Debbi Caldwell, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
383“to witness to all”: Debbi Caldwell, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
383“Most people downplayed that”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
383“She personified”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
384Norma paid: Debbi Caldwell, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
384‘I have to get out’: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
384“It had the fetus”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
385to be where Dorothy: Father Robinson, email to Norma McCorvey, July 13, 2007. NMP.
385“because it’s January”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
385titled American Holocaust: The film was later retitled Blood Money. Directed by David K. Kyle, TAH, 2010.
385“Seeing the famous folks”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
385“Norma was never given”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
386“She really wanted”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, June 25, 2019.
386“the former Jane Roe”: Newman, Their Blood Cries Out.
386“I was just trying”: Troy Newman, interview with the author, June 4, 2018.
386“She was very jealous”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
386“She just went through”: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
387“If you brought”: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 7, 2018.
387“Even after she had”: Utah Foster, interview with the author, January 29, 2019.
387“It was reckless”: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, October 4, 2018.
387“make money”: Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 28, 2019.
387“righteous testosterone”: Porteous, “OR founder calls for ‘Christian nation.’ ”
388“pathetic males”: Randall Terry, The Judgement of God, 49.
388“repeated sinful relationships”: Hanna Rosin, “Randall Terry Censured by Church,” Washington Post, February 12, 2000.
388“only had sex”: Rosin, “Randall Terry Censured by Church.”
388“Now you see”: Dan Barry, “Icon for Abortion Protestors Is Looking for a Second Act,” New York Times, July 20, 2001.
388additional snickering: Michael Powell, “Family Values,” Washington Post, April 22, 2004.
388Terry moved to Nashville: Barry, “Icon for Abortion Protestors.”
388“resumed ministry”: Barry, “Icon for Abortion Protestors.”
388“The movement has gone”: Jacqueline L. Salmon, “Old Mission, New Life,” Washington Post, July 15, 2009.
388he’d paid her: George Basler, “ ‘Jane Roe’ Backs Terry,” Press & Sun–Bulletin (Binghamton, NY), October 25, 1997.
388in his bid for Congress: Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 28, 2019.
388sold more than five hundred: Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 28, 2019.
388the two would meet up: Randall Terry, interview with the author, January 28, 2019.
389fake blood he bought: Salmon, “Old Mission, New Life.”
389Terry invited her: Salmon, “Old Mission, New Life.”
389heckling the judge: Kate Phillips, “About One Abortion Protester at Sotomayor Hearing,” The Caucus (blog), New York Times, July 13, 2009.
389dumping pink plastic fetuses: Marie Magleby, “ ‘Jane Roe’ to Nancy Pelosi: ‘Don’t Put Abortion in Health-Care Reform Bill,’ ” CNSNews.com, July 28, 2009.
389“so unstable”: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, October 4, 2018.
389she arrived home: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
PART VIII: THE FAMILY ROE
393“She never had the abortion”: Margaret Talbot, “A Risky Proposal,” New Yorker, January 7, 2010.
393Connie had not spoken: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, December 7, 2018.
394“Please!”: Connie Gonzales, interview with the author, June 29, 2010.
394under $15,000: Warranty Deed from Darla Rayburn to Connie C. Gonzales, July 25, 1967 (filed July 28, 1967), Dallas County Texas County Clerk, vol. 67147, p. 1059. Also Deed of Trust from Jack Keller to Connie C. Gonzales, filed July 28, 1967, Dallas County Texas County Clerk, vol. 67147, p. 1004.
394more than $80,000: The house was four years old when Connie bought it in 1967. According to the deed, Connie assumed what was left of both its original $13,550 mortgage and a $900 vendor’s lien. According to the Dallas Central Appraisal District, the total market value of the home in 2001 was $80,460.
394Connie had to agree: Peter J. Parenti, letter to Norma McCorvey, December 4, 2004. NMP.
394Connie did not: Peter J. Parenti, interview with the author, October 29, 2019.
394borrowing $92,000: Brice, Vander Linden & Wernick, P.C., letter to Norma McCorvey and Connie Gonzalez, April 15, 2010. Courtesy of Sheree Havlik.
394she owed $4,000: Brice, Vander Linden & Wernick, P.C., letter to Norma McCorvey and Connie Gonzalez, April 15, 2010. Courtesy of Sheree Havlik.
394a hardship loan: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, October 4, 2019.
394Norma refused: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, October 4, 2019.
394“ORDER FOR FORECLOSURE”: Brice, Vander Linden & Wernick, P.C., letter to Norma McCorvey and Connie Gonzalez, April 15, 2010. Courtesy of Sheree Havlik.
395They agreed: Connie Gonzales and Linda Tovar, interview with the author, January 13, 2011.
395found the birthdate: Peter Sonski, “McCorvey to Enter Catholic Church,” National Catholic Register, June 21, 1998.
395She said that she had: Ruth Price, interview with the author, February 21, 2011.
395hire a private investigator: Lisa Gipson, interview with the author, January 13, 2014.
396Jennifer had not heard: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 9, 2012.
396“I think it’s interesting”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 9, 2012.
396“happiest moment”: Jennifer Ferguson, Facebook post, November 10, 2012.
396“I always wondered”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 10, 2012.
396“I can’t believe”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 10, 2012.
396“You do look”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Jennifer Ferguson, November 11, 2012.
396“She’s just a very”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Jennifer Ferguson, November 11, 2012.
397“It’s answered a lot”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Jennifer Ferguson, November 11, 2012.
397“Y’all like”: Author’s notes on conversation between Mary Sandefur and Jennifer Ferguson, November 11, 2012.
397“it’s always going”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 18, 2012.
397“THAT I REALLY DO”: Jennifer Ferguson, email to Shelley Thornton and the author, November 27, 2012.
398“Anonymity combined”: Dwight Garner, “A Dive into the Abyss in the Anonymous ‘Incest Diary,’ ” New York Times, July 19, 2017.
398“Secrets and lies”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
398“It’s exhausting”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
398“It’s helping me”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 30, 2012.
398“I would like”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 14, 2012.
399“purity of soul”: Lake of Fire, film, directed by Tony Kaye, Anonymous Content, 2008.
399“I get mixed up”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 8, 2013.
399“Jennifer kind of got”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
399its biological father: Affidavit of Norma McCorvey, June 11, 2003, McCorvey v. Hill, 385 F.3d 846.
399began to regulate: In 1851, Massachusetts passed the Adoption of Children Act, which required judges to determine if adoptive parents were fit to rear children.
399roughly four times more likely: In 1972, there was an estimated total of 716,760 abortions performed in the U.S.: 586,760 legal, and an estimated 130,000 illegal. “Abortion Surveillance, 1972, 1974,” Family Planning Evaluation Division, Centers for Disease Control, no. 74–8205. Willard Cates, Jr., and Roger W. Rochat, “Illegal Abortions in the United States: 1972–1974,” Family Planning Perspectives 8, no. 2 (March/April 1976): 86–92. In 1970, there were 175,000 adoptions in the U.S. Marianne Bitler and Madeline Zavodny, “Did Abortion Legalization Reduce the Number of Unwanted Children? Evidence from Adoptions,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 34, no. 1 (January/February 2002): 25–33.
400All were pro-choice: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013. Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 11, 2012. Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 10, 2012.
400“I’ve always been pro-choice”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 10, 2012.
400“My boobs are”: Author’s notes on conversation between Shelley Thornton and Jennifer Ferguson, March 14, 2013.
400“This is where”: Author’s notes on conversation between Jennifer Ferguson and Shelley Thornton, March 15, 2013.
402she drove on: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, November 13, 2019.
402“I said, Norma McCorvey”: Adena Lewis, interview with the author, November 12, 2019.
402in “the perfect place”: Adena Lewis, interview with the author, November 12, 2019.
403“The state park”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, November 13, 2019.
403“talk about what”: Lauren Nailen, interview with the author, July 13, 2018.
403“It wasn’t a religious”: Peter Mackenzie, interview with the author, August 6, 2018.
403“there better not”: William Goldman, Boys and Girls Together (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 583.
404“bloody realism”: Annie Finch, ed., Choice Words: Writers on Abortion, (Chicago: Haymarket, 2020), xv.
404writing of soaked slippers: Sharon Olds, “The End,” in The Dead and the Living (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1984).
404“it’s really an awfully simple”: Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants,” in Men Without Women (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927).
404“the very thought”: Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (New York: Little, Brown, 1961).
404rare was the script: Gretchen Sisson and Katrina Kimport, “Facts and Fictions: Characters seeking abortion on American television, 2005–2014,” Contraception 93, no. 5 (May 2016): 446–51. “Majority of TV abortion plot lines reinforce myths about the procedure,” Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, ansirh.org.
404$25,000: Peter Mackenzie, interview with the author, November 12, 2019.
404“complicated, protective and cerebral”: Hollie McKay, “Roe v. Wade Plaintiff Norma McCorvey Makes Acting Debut in New Film ‘Doonby,’ ” Fox News, May 13, 2011.
404“pitchforked into fame”: Peter Mackenzie, interview with the author, August 6, 2018.
405“I think people forget”: Erin Way, interview with the author, October 9, 2012.
405“She just liked”: Jeannie Ralph, interview with the author, June 13, 2018.
405ten or so Bud Lights: Susan DeVine, interview with the author, September 15, 2018.
405who remained thankful: Susan DeVine, interview with the author, September 15, 2018.
405“I could have”: Henry Lee Taylor, interview with the author, June 12, 2018.
406“Having similar bruises”: Henry Lee Taylor, interview with the author, June 12, 2018.
406“scorned, rejected, snubbed”: Barbara Ellis, “Norma,” 1995, draft of article submitted to newsletter of the National Women’s Political Caucus, Alameda North branch. NMP.
406“Which is it Fr. Frank”: Norma McCorvey, email to Frank Pavone, February 2, 2009. Courtesy of Judy Wiggins.
406“She feels at the end”: Erin Way, interview with the author, October 9, 2012.
406“On the pro-choice side”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, May 19, 2020.
406publicly stating her position: Days after Roe, Norma told the reporter Robert O’Brien: “I wouldn’t want to wait over three months for any abortion, because I might be ending a human life after that time.” And days after her conversion, she told Ted Koppel that she felt abortion ought to be legal through the first trimester. Associated Press, “Abortion Reformer Sheds ‘Jane Roe,’ ” Dallas Morning News, January 27, 1973. ABC News Nightline, ABC, August 10, 1995.
407“the mushy middle”: Steven Waldman and Ginny Carroll, “Roe v. Roe,” Newsweek, August 21, 1995.
407a poll would soon reveal: Lydia Saad, “Majority of Americans Still Support Roe v. Wade Decision,” Gallup, January 22, 2013.
407“a microcosm of America”: “Justice Foundation Press Conference, Subject: Petition for Supreme Court to Reverse Decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton,” Federal News Service, January 18, 2005.
407drunk and pole dancing: Norma McCorvey, text message to Henry Taylor, September 23, 2010. Courtesy of Henry Taylor.
407“I like my life”: Rhys Blakely, “How Woman Behind U.S. Pro Abortion Law Changed her Mind,” The Times (London), August 1, 2011.
408she came to believe: Rosie Lopez, interview with the author, December 3, 2019.
408“Religion wounded her”: Rosie Lopez, interview with the author, November 25, 2019.
408praying for a husband: Norma McCorvey, text message to Henry Taylor, February 7, 2011. Courtesy of Henry Taylor.
v“I’m dating men now”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
408“I thought you’d be proud”: Ronda Mackey, interview with the author, December 11, 2017.
408cut her off too: Judy Wiggins, interview with the author, July 12, 2018.
408the man she had wed: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 11, 2018.
408“I was in deep”: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, October 4, 2018.
409was wholly unaware: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, October 4, 2018.
409“They gave us”: Linda Tovar, interview with the author, August 2021.
409so as to better picture: Lianne Hart, “Neighbors—in Name Only,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1995.
410the blood of millions: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, November 13, 2019.
410Norma hung up: Peter Mackenzie, interview with the author, August 6, 2018.
410“I obeyed”: Paul Bond, “Woman at Center of Roe v. Wade Stars in Abortion-Themed Movie,” Hollywood Reporter, May 4, 2011.
410“heart has been low”: Norma McCorvey, text message to Henry Taylor, August 28, 2010. Courtesy of Henry Taylor.
410the accompanying photographer: The photographer was Bob Daemmrich. Blakely, “How Woman Behind U.S. Pro Abortion Law.”
41085 percent of them: Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion (New York: Scribner, 2020), 126.
410“There was a disconnect”: Susan DeVine, interview with the author, November 10, 2019.
411did not support it: Peter Mackenzie, interview with the author, August 6, 2018.
411“moving and thought-provoking”: Gianfranco Grieco, “ ‘Doonby’ to open in the United States,” L’Osservatore Romano, February 12, 2012.
411“painful regrets”: Grieco, “ ‘Doonby’ to open.”
411arranging a screening: Peter Mackenzie, interview with the author, November 12, 2019.
411mismanagement of funds: David Gibson, “Priests for Life in Financial Trouble,” National Catholic Reporter, September 26, 2011.
411“good standing”: David Gibson, “After a Year of Exile, Anti-Abortion Priest Frank Pavone Is Back,” National Catholic Register, October 16, 2012.
411“I had a lot”: Heidi Erwin, interview with the author, August 27, 2018.
411have children too: 59 percent of women who have abortions are already mothers. Millions more women, like Erwin, have children after their abortions. Jenna Jerman, Rachel K. Jones and Tsuyoshi Onda, “Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008,” Guttmacher Institute, 2016.
412“She was withdrawing”: Heidi Erwin, interview with the author, June 14, 2020.
412“had a permanent”: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, October 4, 2018.
412“Do not vote”: “Norma McCorvey – Jane Roe of ‘Roe v Wade’ on Randall Terry for Congress Commercial,” YouTube, February 18, 2017.
412“a piece of pizza”: Lauren Nailen, interview with the author, July 13, 2018.
412“mass murderer”: Blakely, “How Woman Behind U.S. Pro Abortion Law.”
412had instructed her to reassemble: Norma McCorvey, interview with Peter Mackenzie, July 24, 2014. Courtesy of Peter Mackenzie.
412“in a dangerous place”: Daniel Vinzant, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.
414“to save our souls!”: Angie Heiter, interview with Mater Dei Latin Mass Parish, May 21, 2016, https://materdeiparish.com/2016/05/parish-life-series-rosary-makers/.
414“I was cranking”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
414the plastic Jesus: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
415“This whole roe anniversary”: Nancy Hokamp, email to Sue Cyr, January 23, 2013. Courtesy of Sue Cyr.
415“What she desperately needs”: Nancy Hokamp, email to the author, January 23, 2013.
415“She offers her sufferings”: Angie Heiter, email to Sue Cyr, February 16, 2013. Courtesy of Sue Cyr.
415“the one I want”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
415“There’s something about”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 4, 2013.
415“you have no impact”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 16, 2013.
416“COLD AND NONCHALANT”: Jennifer Ferguson, email to Shelley Thornton and the author, November 27, 2012.
416“I always wanted”: Author’s notes on conversation between Shelley Thornton and Melissa Mills, March 16, 2013.
416“I was totally being treated”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 24, 2013.
416found it difficult: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 28, 2013.
416was also taken aback: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, May 29, 2013.
417“I now see a certain genius”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
417her very last function: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 27, 2014.
418“I’m not ready”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, October 15, 2013.
418“nigger lover”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, November 10, 2012.
418“fornicating homosexual”: Jordan Mills, interview with the author, October 18, 2013.
418could possibly forgive: Mary Sandefur, interview with the author, October 5, 2011.
418“You can’t trust her”: Mary Sandefur, interview with the author, October 5, 2011.
418“Kind of a traditional”: Author’s notes on conversation between Daniel Schramm and Melissa Mills, October 17, 2013.
419long gone drinking: Author’s notes on conversation between Norma McCorvey and Melissa Mills, October 17, 2013.
419“He’s brought me”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Norma McCorvey, October 17, 2013.
419paid her a thousand dollars: Norma McCorvey, text message to the author, August 10, 2012.
419“to meet all my daughters”: Author’s notes on conversation between Norma McCorvey and Melissa Mills, October 17, 2013.
420“built up hatred”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
420“I fucking hate you”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
420Jennifer felt joy: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
420“You and mommy dearest”: Author’s notes on conversation between Lisa Gipson and Jennifer Ferguson, October 18, 2013.
421busy studying: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, May 25, 2020.
421“It’s been mind-fucking”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, October 25, 2013.
421“She’s blocked”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, October 25, 2013.
421“look at her”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 17, 2013.
421‘How would you feel’: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, October 27, 2013.
421“The whole kit”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, December 17, 2013.
421she felt loved: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, January 14, 2014.
421“I didn’t know how”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 14, 2021.
421“If I say no”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 2014.
421“I can’t get close”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2014.
422“You don’t get a break”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, March 16, 2013.
422tying a bandanna: Norma McCorvey and Andy Meisler, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe V. Wade, and Freedom of Choice (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 117.
422“I let politics run”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
422“I can understand a woman”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
422“It’s really a lot harder”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 5, 2013.
422“Because I’m scared”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, January 14, 2014.
422“She’s very, very fragile”: Valerie Richardson, “Child of ‘Jane Roe’ identified in Seattle,” Washington Times, June 29, 1989.
422“The emotional similarities”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
423“I wasn’t going”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, November 10, 2013.
423“Shelley thinks”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 4, 2014.
423“very taboo”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 1, 2014.
423“We skirted around”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, August 15, 2018.
423“My first instinct”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 13, 2016.
423“just to let her know”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, July 27, 2014.
423“ready to go see Grandma”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 13, 2016.
423“I couldn’t talk”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 14, 2021.
424“Please let me know”: Melissa Mills, text message to Shelley Thornton, December 23, 2014. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
424“just like Norma”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, September 1, 2014.
424“I’m tired of bleeding”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, May 31, 2014.
424“I raised hell”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 2, 2014.
424“My family can’t”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, June 25, 2014.
424“It just really hurt”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 13, 2013.
425“I’ve seen it too often”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 13, 2013.
425moving her to a nursing home: Frank Pavone, interview with the author, June 26, 2014.
425only word from Pavone: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, November 27, 2014.
425“I can’t live”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, January 24, 2015.
425“She’s too fucking nice”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 10, 2016.
426tried to stab: Glenda Diane Hyman, interview with the author, March 25, 2015.
426a half-dozen partners: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
426“We were having a threesome”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
427“When you have something”: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, March 31, 2015.
427had come to see: Pete Aguilar, interview with the author, June 30, 2015.
427“You look so much”: Author’s notes on conversation between Pete Aguilar and Jennifer Ferguson, June 30, 2015.
428He was too controlling: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 13, 2016.
428“were vulnerable enough”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
428“For me, family”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, March 13, 2016.
429“I will die”: Norma McCorvey, email to Judy Wiggins, September 4, 2008. Courtesy of Judy Wiggins.
429calling her “mother”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 23, 2015.
429“a good hard prick”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 23, 2015.
429“sex and religion”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 23, 2015.
429given away the silver ring: Sheree Havlik, interview with the author, April 30, 2018.
429“a rough life”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, June 29, 2015.
430“absent and unfaithful”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 14, 2020.
430“He’s short”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Ray McCorvey, September 19, 2015.
430one time she’d met him: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Ray McCorvey, September 19, 2015.
430For only they: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, May 17, 2020.
431her rise at Walmart: Jennifer Ferguson, email to the author, January 26, 2016.
431“My stomach is in knots”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, April 26, 2016.
432“a Medicaid bed”: Author’s notes on conversation between Eric Heumann and Melissa Mills, March 6, 2016.
432“You have to be”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, March 6, 2016.
432“The movement”: Kass McMahon, interview with the author, July 22, 2018.
432“They didn’t do nothing”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 8, 2016.
432annual budget in the millions: Catholics for a Free Choice, “Faithless Politics: Priests for Life Defies Constitution and Conscience,” August 2006.
432Pavone refused in 2014: David Gibson, “Cardinal Timothy Dolan Cuts Ties with Anti-Abortion Crusader Frank Pavone,” National Catholic Reporter, December 15, 2014.
432turned to the Texas case: The case was Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. By a vote of five to three, the Supreme Court ruled that various regulations at Texas abortion clinics constituted an undue burden on women and were thus unconstitutional.
432“Women have been doing”: Author’s notes on conversation between Norma McCorvey and Melissa Mills, March 6, 2016.
432paid her $3,000: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, May 2, 2016. Norma also alerted Father Pavone that Sweeney paid her. “I charged of course so I’ll have some bucks at the end,” she wrote. Norma McCorvey, text message to Frank Pavone, May 24, 2016. Courtesy of Frank Pavone. Sweeney later said that “Norma was not paid to participate in the documentary” beyond licensing fees of her personal archive. “Documentary Reveals Norma McCorvey, ‘Jane Roe’, Was Paid to Reverse Abortion Stance,” American Voices with Alicia Menendez, MSNBC, May 23, 2020.
433Melissa was furious: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, May 2, 2016.
433“I should had abort you”: Norma McCorvey, text message to Melissa Mills, May 9, 2016. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
433“She’s vindictive”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, April 26, 2016.
433“She’s probably mad”: Author’s notes on conversation between Shelley Thornton and Eric Heumann, July 7, 2016.
433“I went through”: Author’s notes on conversation between Shelley Thornton, Melissa Mills and Jennifer Ferguson, July 8, 2016.
434Norma got booted: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, May 17, 2020.
434lungs were profusely damaged: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, July 26, 2016. A recent test had revealed that her FEV1 score, the amount of air she could exhale in a second, was 34 percent.
434Norma was “performing”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, October 6, 2016.
434“to learn to love”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, May 25, 2020.
435“I’m dying”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 15, 2017.
435“Fils de putain”: Author’s notes on conversation between Norma McCorvey and Melissa Mills, February 16, 2017.
435“going the right way”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 17, 2017.
436“Hey, sweet lady”: Author’s notes on conversation between Chloe Mills and Norma McCorvey, February 17, 2017.
436“Jell-O”: Author’s notes on conversation between Norma McCorvey, Melissa Mills and Chloe Mills, February 17, 2017.
436“I’m here now”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Norma McCorvey, February 18, 2017.
438legalized gay marriage: Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015).
438“The Supreme Court has”: Transcript of Record at 3095, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F.Supp.2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010), no. C:09cv02292.
438twelve times less likely: Robert Green, Adam Rosenblatt, “C-SPAN / PSB 2018 Research Supreme Court Survey,” CSPAN, PSB, August 13–15, 2018.
438“No other nation”: Michael Kinsley, “What Abortion Debate?,” Slate, November 19, 2005.
438one of fifty-eight countries: Angelina Theodorou and Aleksandra Sandstrom, “How Abortion Is Regulated Around the World,” Pew Research Center, October 6, 2015.
438“was enough to settle”: “The War that Never Ends,” Economist, January 16, 2003.
439“justify abortion”: “The War that Never Ends,” Economist.
441“individualism and libertarianism”: Mary Ann Glendon, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law: American Failures, European Challenges. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 52.
439Christopher Hitchens: Christopher Hitchens, “Fetal Distraction,” Vanity Fair, February 2003.
439“preoccupation with evil”: Roger Rosenblatt, Life Itself: Abortion in the American Mind (New York: Random House, 1992), 106.
439“reproduce themselves by fission”: Rosenblatt, Life Itself, 131.
439“take abortion out”: Michael Kilian, “Specter Joins ’96 Field, Targets GOP Far Right,” Chicago Tribune, March 31, 1995.
439“The unborn child”: “The Vision Shared: The Republican Platform, Uniting Our Family, Our Country, Our World,” Republican Party platform, 1992. Available at the American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1992-republican-party-platform.
439only developed country: Mona Siegel, “The Forgotten Origins of Paid Family Leave,” New York Times, November 29, 2019.
439“weakness of the Republican Party”: Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt, “The Abortion Debate,” The Argument (podcast), New York Times, February 7, 2019.
439“The pro-life cause”: Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 267.
440“psychological harm”: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), Section VIII.
440as Blackmun had written: In 2007, in explaining why the Court had upheld the federal ban against certain late-term abortions, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote of the “severe depression and loss of self-esteem” that abortion can occasion. Gonzales v. Carhart, 127 S. Ct. 1610, 1634 (2007).
440“the Court has spoken”: Lee Gidding, to the board of the National Abortion Rights Action League, February 7, 1973. Records of the National Abortion Rights Action League 1968–1976, Carton 1, 1973–1974, Executive Committee Folder. Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
440“started to lose ground”: Rebecca Traister, “Warning: Abortion’s Deadly DIY Past Could Soon Become its Future,” New York Magazine, January 9–22, 2017.
440“When we women”: Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (New York: Harper and Row, 1989): 147–60.
441a 1978 book: Linda Bird Francke, The Ambivalence of Abortion (Sydney: Penguin Australia, 1978).
4411989 amicus brief: Sarah E. Burns, “2,887 Women Who Have Had Abortions et al.,” Brief as Amicus Curiae, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989).
441publications begun in 2000: Abortion Conversation Project records. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.
441abortions they’d had before: Johanna Schoen, Abortion After Roe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 15.
441Ali MacGraw: Ali MacGraw, “When Abortion Was Illegal,” People, August 5, 1985.
441Whoopi Goldberg: Angela Bonavoglia, ed., The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out Against Abortion (New York: Random House, 1991), 137.
441“no celebrity”: Susan Dominus, “The Mysterious Disappearance of Young Pro-Choice Women,” Glamour 103, no. 8 (August 2005).
441two documentaries: Speak Out: I Had an Abortion, film, directed by Gillian Aldrich, Speak Out Productions, 2005. The Abortion Diaries, film, directed by Penny Lane, 2005.
441“the dread secret”: Lawrence Lader, Abortion (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 1.
441“cramps are getting”: Patty Lee, “Angie Jackson Live-Tweets her Abortion to ‘Demystify’ Procedure, Receives Death Threats,” Daily News (New York), February 26, 2010.
441“a bold new movement”: Elizabeth Kissling, From a Whisper to a Shout: Abortion Activism and Social Media (London: Watkins Media, 2018), 18.
442“to start thinking”: Katha Pollitt, PRO: Reclaiming Abortion (London: Picador, 2014), 27.
442“a good and moral choice”: “Prepared Statement of Curtis Boyd, M.D., Santa Fe, NM,” in Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives: One Hundred First Congress, First and Second Sessions (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994), 83.
44295 percent: Corinne H. Rocca, Katrina Kimport, Sarah C. M. Roberts, Heather Gould, John Neuhaus and Diana G. Foster, “Decision Rightness and Emotional Responses to Abortion in the United States: A Longitudinal Study,” PLOS One, July 8, 2015.
442if women learned of abortion: Joey Peters, “A Moral Choice,” Santa Fe Reporter, July 19, 2017.
442more than half of the clinics: Owing to HB2, the number of clinics in Texas had dropped in fifteen months from forty-one to nineteen. Caitlin Gerdts et al., “Impact of Clinic Closures on Women Obtaining Abortion Services After Implementation of a Restrictive Law in Texas,” AJPH Research 106, no. 5 (May 2016): 857.
442abortion providers had been falling: There were 1,558 abortion providers in the U.S. in 1973, 2,908 in 1982, and 1,587 in 2017. “Number of Abortion Providers 1973–2017,” Guttmacher Institute, https://data.guttmacher.org/states/trend?state=US&topics=71&dataset=data.
442Five states: The five states were Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia. See https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/report_downloads/abortion-incidence-service-availability-us-2017-tables.pdf.
442accounted for nearly one in three: In 2016, according to the Guttmacher Institute, there were 874,080 abortions in the United States. Of those, 140,700 were performed in California and 110,840 in New York, comprising 28.7 percent of the total. R. K. Jones, E. Witwer and J. Jerman, Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017 (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2019), https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-incidence-service-availability-us-2017.
442down by nearly half: There were 1,590,750 abortions in the U.S. in 1988 and 862,320 in 2017. “Number of Abortions by State of Occurrence 1973–2017.”
442rate of abortion: R. K. Jones, E. Witwer and J. Jerman, “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017” (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2019), https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-incidence-service-availability-us-2017.
443regulations had helped: For more on the causes of the decline in pregnancy rates and abortion rates, see Geoffrey Stone, Sex and the Constitution (New York: Liveright, 2017), 429–33.
443between sixteen and twenty-nine: Katie Watson, Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 31. Watson explains in a footnote that her calculation assumes that a woman will begin having sex at seventeen, which is the national average, and not at fifteen, which is the age at which fertility starts (245).
443roughly one in five: 18 percent of pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) ended in abortion in 2017. R. K. Jones, E. Witwer and J. Jerman, Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017 (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2019), https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-incidence-service-availability-us-2017.
443in an amicus brief: Brief for National Abortion Federation as Amici Curiae, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. __ (2016).
443fourteen in France and Germany: German law states that abortion is legal through the twelve weeks following conception, which is equivalent to fourteen weeks from the last menstrual period.
443none of the countries: Nicolas Boring and Jenny Gesley, foreign law specialists at the Law Library of Congress, emails to the author, February 22, 2021.
444“We would happily trade”: Douthat, Goldberg and Leonhardt, “The Abortion Debate.”
444could not provide a single instance: Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. ___ (2016), IV.
444“great for the women”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 30, 2016.
444“very pro-choice”: Meet the Press, NBC, October 24, 1999.
444he was pro life: The Laura Ingraham Show, Talk Radio Network, February 9, 2011.
444had supported a ban: David Brody, “Brody File Exclusive: Donald Trump Comes Out in Support of 20 Week Abortion Ban,” CBN News, July 22, 2015.
444opposition to abortion was complete: Meet the Press, NBC, August 16, 2015.
444“some form of punishment”: Tom Kertscher, “In Context: Transcript of Donald Trump on punishing women for abortion,” Politifact, March 30, 2016.
444“The woman is the same”: Troy Newman, Their Blood Cries Out (Indiana: Restoration Press, 2003), 81.
445found not guilty: Keeler v. Superior Court, 2 Cal. 3d 619, 87 Cal. Rptr. 481, 470 P.2d 617 (1970).
445according to a report: Lynn Paltrow and Jeanne Flavin, “Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States (1973–2005): The implications for women’s legal status and public health,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 38, no. 2 (2013): 299.
445“These laws”: “The Feticide Playbook, Explained,” editorial, New York Times, December 28, 2018.
445Eight states decreed: The states are Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Nevada and Utah. Courtesy of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
445a variety of offenses: Courtesy of Lynn Paltrow, National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Regarding self-abortion, see for example Commonwealth of Virginia v. Michelle Roberts in 2017 (CR17F00844-01). Regarding abuse of a corpse, and concealing a birth, see State v. Anne Bynum in Arkansas in 2018 (CR-16-879). Regarding murder, see for example State v. Latice Fisher in Mississippi in 2018 (2018-0028-CRH).
445“abortion opponents blame”: Pollitt, PRO: Reclaiming Abortion, 35.
445“The woman is a victim”: Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman, “Donald Trump, Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then Recants,” New York Times, March 30, 2016.
446“pick Mike Pence”: Isobel Yeung, “Consent,” Vice on HBO, Vice Media/HBO, September 28, 2018.
446“the 24–karat-gold model”: “Consent,” Vice on HBO.
446“sent to the ash heap”: Congressional Record 157, part 2, H1156 (February 17, 2011). 112th Cong., 1st sess.
446“That’ll happen automatically”: Aaron Blake, “The final Trump–Clinton Debate Transcript, Annotated,” Washington Post, October 19, 2016.
446“These Supreme Court nominations”: Jeffrey Toobin, “Still Standing,” New Yorker, November 28, 2005.
446“proxies on Roe”: David A. Kaplan, The Most Dangerous Branch (New York: Random House, 2018), 201.
446just two of the votes: Republican Lincoln Chafee voted against confirming Samuel Alito, and Democrat Benjamin Nelson voted against confirming Elena Kagan.
446“Constitutional law”: Kaplan, The Most Dangerous Branch, 247.
447meeting with groups of evangelicals: The meeting with Newman and Benham was convened by the Southern Baptist lobbyist Tony Perkins. Troy Newman, email to the author, April 22, 2020.
447“Here before me”: Barbie Latza Nadeau, “Why Catholics Crucified Clinton,” Daily Beast, November 9, 2016.
447“Hillary Clinton and the Democratic platform”: Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “A Catholic Priest Put an Aborted Fetus on the Altar in an Appeal for Donald Trump,” Washington Post, November 7, 2016.
447“Everyone who respects”: Ed Mechmann, “A Political Desecration,” Archdiocese of New York, November 7, 2016, https://archny.org/a-political-desecration/.
447“be reserved for divine”: Code of Canon Law, c. 1239 §1.
447“no one who is pro-life”: Patrick J. Zurek, “Statement from Bishop Patrick J. Zurek,” Roman Catholic Diocese of Amarillo, November 8, 2016.
447despite Pavone’s claims: Mary Pezzulo, “Frank Pavone Throws Down the Gauntlet, and I Respond,” Patheos, April 22, 2020.
447no longer a priest in good standing: Robert Aranda, a deacon at the Amarillo diocese, said that when asked about Father Pavone, “we don’t ever issue a letter of good standing.” Robert Aranda, interview with the author, August 10, 2020.
447video generated press: Rhina Guidos, “Diocese Investigating Priest over Political Video of Fetus, Altar Use,” Catholic News Service, November 9, 2016.
447declared that Obama: Manny Fernandez, “A Texas Candidate Pushes the Boundary of the Far Right,” New York Times, March 12, 2016.
44784 percent: “Seeing Red: County goes big for GOP,” Wood County Monitor, November 16, 2016.
447among the 69 percent: Hannah Fingerhut, “About seven-in-ten Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade,” Pew Research Center, January 13, 2017.
448“Trump on abortion”: Danielle Paquette, “What People Really Wanted to Know about Trump on Election Day,” Washington Post, November 8, 2016.
448thousands gathered in protest: The North Texas March for Life is sponsored by Texans for Life, the Catholic Pro-Life Committee/Pro-Life Dallas and the Diocese of Fort Worth.
448constitutional originalist: Neil Gorsuch, “Judge Neil Gorsuch: Why Originalism Is the Best Approach to the Constitution,” Time, September 6, 2019.
448“American liberals”: Neil Gorsuch, “Liberals ’N’ Lawsuits,” National Review, February 7, 2005.
448“that all human beings”: Neil Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 4.
448“Gee, might that principle”: Ed Whelan, “Misguided ‘Pro-Life’ Attack on Trump Supreme Court Candidate Neil Gorsuch,” National Review, November 30, 2016.
448“pablum posing as humility”: Kaplan, The Most Dangerous Branch, 82.
449had passed sixty-three: Elizabeth Nash, Rachel Benson Gold, Lizamarie Mohammed, Zohra Ansari-Thomas and Olivia Cappello, “Policy Trends in the States, 2017,” Guttmacher Institute, January 2, 2018.
449“the Great White Whale”: Kaplan, The Most Dangerous Branch, 202.
449rise in breast cancer: Joel Brind, “Abortion and Breast Cancer: Evidence Mounts: Laws Pass; Medical Media Stay in Denial,” National Right to Life News, November 30, 1995, 22. According to the American Cancer Society, “the scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer”; see https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/medical-treatments/abortion-and-breast-cancer-risk.html.
449drop in crime: John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, no. 2 (May 2001): 379–420. Steven Pinker assails the theory in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking, 2011), 119–21.
449“women or unborn children”: William Saletan, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 188.
449“is the most consequential”: Jack Goldsmith, “Justice Kennedy’s Retirement Leaves the Future of U.S. Constitutional law Entirely up for Grabs,” Washington Post, June 27, 2018.
449“the firewall for abortion rights”: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Departure of Kennedy, ‘Firewall for Abortion Rights,’ Could End Roe v. Wade,” New York Times, June 27, 2018.
450concerned a Mexican teenager: Garza v. Hargan, 874 F.3d 735 (D.C. Cir. 2017).
450“a new right for unlawful”: Garza v. Hargan.
450“The constitutional right to abortion”: Mark Joseph Stern, “The End of Roe,” Slate, June 27, 2018.
451“the appellant’s case”: Roe v. Wade, Section IX.
451“Abortion Is Unconstitutional”: John Finnis, “Abortion Is Unconstitutional,” First Things, no. 312 (April 2021): 29–38.
451rejected the notion of a personhood: Clarke Forsythe, Politics for the Greatest Good: The Case for Prudence in the Public Square (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 190.
451Trump advocated: Oriana Schwindt, “Donald Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ Interview: 12 Biggest Takeaways,” Variety, November 13, 2016.
451“she makes her choice”: Jay Floyd, oral argument, December 13, 1971, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
451illegal in at least twenty-four: Center for Reproductive Rights, “What If Roe Fell?,” 2019, https://reproductiverights.org/what-if-roe-fell.
451sixteen illegal, thirty-four legal: Clarke Forsythe, email to the author, May 4, 2020.
451below the federal poverty level: The proportion of abortion patients who are poor or low-income is growing. As of 2014, 49 percent were living below the federal poverty level. Jenna Jerman, Rachel K. Jones and Tsuyoshi Onda, “Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008,” Guttmacher Institute, May 2016.
452“have higher earnings”: Kate Bahn, Adriana Kugler, Melissa Mahoney, Danielle Corley and Annie McGrew, “Linking Reproductive Health Care Access to Labor Market Opportunities for Women,” Center for American Progress, November 21, 2017.
452sharp rise in medical abortions: Michelle Oberman, “What Happens When Abortion Is Banned,” New York Times, May 31, 2018.
452“Law enforcement will”: Oberman, “What Happens When Abortion Is Banned.”
452“actually reinforce the power”: Susan Sontag, “The Third World of Women,” Partisan Review, Spring 1973, 204. Originally published in the October 1972 issue of Libre, a Spanish quarterly in Paris, in a translation by Juan Goytisolo.
452“I don’t think”: David Crary and Carla K. Johnson, “Overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn’t turn back the clock to 1973,” Associated Press, May 27, 2019.
453“If abortion becomes”: Michael Kinsley, “What Abortion Debate?,” Slate, November 18, 2005.
453“litigation addiction”: Gorsuch, “Liberals ’N’ Lawsuits.”
453“would probably ignite”: Jeffrey Rosen, “The Day After Roe,” Atlantic, June 2006.
453“reflect the popular will”: Rosen, “The Day After Roe.”
453first trimester only: According to a 2018 Gallup poll, 60 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal through the first trimester. That percentage drops to 28 for the second trimester, and 13 for the third. Lydia Saad, “Trimesters Still Key to U.S. Abortion Views,” Gallup, June 13, 2018.
453“I wanted it louder”: NMP.
453“To overrule an important precedent”: Robert H. Jackson, “Decisional Law and Stare Decisis,” American Bar Association Journal 30, no. 6 (June 1944): 334.
453“to presume that bedrock”: Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254 (1986), Section V.
454“major precedents”: Dan Keating, Brittany Renee Mayes and Kevin Schaul, “How Often Does the Supreme Court Overturn Precedents like Roe v. Wade,” Washington Post, May 21, 2019.
454“unduly upset”: Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ___ (2020). (Justice Kavanaugh concurrence), Section I.
454Archibald Cox . . . defended: Wrote Cox: “Constitutional rights ought not to be created under the Due Process Clause unless they can be stated in principles sufficiently absolute to give them roots throughout the community and continuity over significant periods of time, and to lift them above the level of the pragmatic political judgements of a particular time and place. . . . The failure to confront the [abortion] issue in principled terms leaves the [Roe] opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations . . .” Archibald Cox, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 113–14.
454“the most compelling interest”: Cox, The Role of the Supreme Court, 53.
454“that the Court’s reversal”: Justice David Souter clerk memo, July 12, 1991.
454“Roe was wrongly decided”: Robin Toner, “Cold Paper Trail Leads Some to Scrutinize Nominee’s Past Words on Abortion,” New York Times, July 21, 2005.
455“doorjamb by doorjamb”: Al Kamen, “Supreme Court Restricts Right to Abortion, Giving States Wide Latitude for Regulation,” Washington Post, July 4, 1989.
455“rape, incest, and me”: Ellen Goodman, “Abortion the Wobbly Majority,” Washington Post, April 15, 1989.
455found to have pressured various partners: Mike DeBonis, “Rep. Tim Murphy Resigns from Congress after Allegedly Asking Woman to Have Abortion,” Washington Post, October 5, 2017. Peter Holley, “Congressman who Advised Ex-Wife to Seek Abortion Votes for Late-Term Abortion Ban,” Washington Post, May 16, 2015.
455Alabama’s bill: The Human Life Protection Act (H.B. 314), enacted May 15, 2019.
455identified the embryo as “Baby Roe”: Ashley Remkus, “Judge Tosses ‘Baby Roe’ Abortion Lawsuit Filed against Huntsville Clinic,” AL.com, August 31, 2019.
455Oregon and Vermont: “Abortion Policy in the Absence of Roe,” Guttmacher Institute, May 1, 2020.
455the Women’s Health Protection Act: Melissa Jeltsen, “Lawmakers Reintroduce Bill to Protect Abortion Access Nationwide,” Huffington Post, May 23, 2019.
456“setting the tone”: Maggie Astor, “On Abortion Rights, 2020 Democrats Move Past ‘Safe, Legal and Rare,’ ” New York Times, November 25, 2019.
456“the truth that the best”: Caitlin Flanagan, “The Things We Can’t Face,” Atlantic, December 2019.
456“A deliberative democracy”: Emma Green, “Science Is Giving the Pro-Life Movement a Boost,” Atlantic, January 18, 2018.
456National Women’s Political Caucus: Luz Moreno-Lozano, “Roe v. Wade attorneys revisit case, look to future,” Austin American–Statesman, June 16, 2019.
456after I noted in an article: Joshua Prager, “Roe v. Wade’s Secret Heroine,” Vanity Fair, January 19, 2017.
456suggested Coffee join her: Cynthia Montgomery, interview with the author, July 2, 2019.
456“We realized that nobody”: Sarah Weddington, recorded interview with Luz Moreno-Lozano, Austin American–Statesman, June 16, 2019. Courtesy of Karen Blumenthal and Luz Moreno-Lozano.
456“Hold it like a lollipop”: Sarah Weddington, recorded interview with Luz Moreno-Lozano.
457“sort of obsolete”: “Oral Memoirs of Linda Coffee,” Patricia Duke, interviewer, April 17, 1973, 20. Collection: Special Project: Roe v. Wade, Baylor University Institute for Oral History.
457“the sanctity of . . .”: Southern Baptist Convention, “Resolution on Abortion,” June 1, 1971.
457a bronze bust of Mildred: Meredith Shamburger, “Bust Unveiling Ceremony of Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson Held,” Panola Watchman, February 23, 2018.
457“You either had to not”: Reminiscences of Dr. Curtis Boyd, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health Project, 2001, 54. Oral History Archives, Columbia University.
457250,000 abortions: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 2, 2020. Boyd estimated that he had personally performed 200,000–250,000 abortions, and that his clinics had performed 400,000–500,000.
458went into cardiac arrest: Claire Chretien, “Woman Dies after Late-Term Abortion at Shady Clinic with History of Abuse,” LifeSite, lifesitenews.com, August 23, 2017.
458“It doesn’t make it”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 2, 2020.
458a backslidden minister: Christian Newswire, “Former Tiller Abortionists Make Albuquerque the New Late-Term Abortion Capital,” March 17, 2010.
458Trump spoke again and again: Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump at the 47th Annual March for Life,” White House Archives, January 24, 2020.
458“baby body parts”: Marsha Blackburn, “An Investigation in Defense of Life,” U.S. News and World Report, November 10, 2015.
458The Texas governor: Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 8 on June 6, 2017.
458attorney general exonerated Boyd: Matthew Reichbach, “AG Finds No Law Broken over Fetal Tissue Donations,” NM Political Report, January 5, 2018.
458state abortion ban unconstitutional: Maggie Astor, “Texas Abortion Law Is Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules,” New York Times, November 22, 2017.
458filed suit: Whole Woman’s Health v. Paxton, 17–51060 (5th Cir. 2020).
458all the way to the Supreme Court: Astor, “Texas Abortion Law Is Unconstitutional.”
458mired in more litigation: Planned Parenthood Center for Choice, et al. v. Greg Abbott, as Governor of Texas, et al., case 1:20–cv-323 (USDC, W. D. Tex. 25 Mar 2020).
458Texas attorney general banned: Raga Justin, “No Abortions in Texas Unless the Mother’s Life Is in Danger, Texas Attorney General Says as Coronavirus Spreads,” Texas Tribune, March 23, 2020.
459“There are more important”: Justine Coleman, “Texas Lt. Governor on Reopening State: ‘There are more important things than living,’ ” The Hill, April 21, 2020.
459Texas lifted its abortion ban: Shannon Najmabadi, “Texas Clinics Resume Abortion Services as State Acknowledges Ban Is No Longer in Place,” Texas Tribune, April 22, 2020.
459“We made it through”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 2, 2020.
459FBI list: Anna North, “Forty Years After Roe, Abortion Doctors Still Fear for Their Safety,” Buzzfeed, January 18, 2013.
459“It’s not your normal”: Reminiscences of Dr. Curtis Boyd, 50.
459“It never left me”: Curtis Boyd, interview with the author, June 2, 2020.
459“Too narrow a front”: “Getting God’s Kingdom Into Politics,” Christianity Today, September 19, 1980.
45981 percent: Molly Worthen, “A Match Made in Heaven,” Atlantic, May 2017.
459“Can we say”: Mark Galli, “Trump Should Be Removed from Office,” Christianity Today, December 19, 2019.
459“this goddamn loser Biden”: Mary Pezzulo, “Diocese of Amarillo: Disregard and Pray for Pavone,” Patheos, September 17, 2020.
459would not grant absolution: Roman Catholic Diocese of Amarillo, “Diocese of Amarillo Issues Statement Regarding Father Frank Pavone,” September 16, 2020.
460“pray for Father Pavone”: Roman Catholic Diocese of Amarillo, “Diocese of Amarillo Issues Statement.”
460“We ask you Father”: “Guillermo Maldonado Prays for President Donald Trump during Evangelical Rally in Miami,” Miami Herald, YouTube, January 3, 2020.
460Ginsburg had co-founded: The journal was the Women’s Rights Law Reporter at Rutgers School of Law in Newark, NJ.
460“This is something central”: “The Supreme Court; Excerpts from Senate Hearing on the Ginsburg Nomination,” New York Times, July 22, 1993.
460“It’s time to put an end”: Colby Itkowitz, “Barrett Signed Ad in 2006 Decrying ‘Barbaric Legacy’ of Roe v. Wade, Advocating Overturning the Law,” Washington Post, October 1, 2020.
460she joined a dissent: Associated Press, “A Look at Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Notable Opinions, Votes,” September 26, 2020.
460“a vapid and hollow charade”: Elena Kagan, “Confirmation Messes, Old and New,” University of Chicago Law Review 62, no. 2 (Spring 1995).
460“that no justice”: Amy C. Barrett, Precedent and Jurisprudential Disagreement, Texas Law Review 91, no. 1711 (2012–13).
461“My most fervent wish”: Matthew Choi and Josh Gerstein, “Ginsburg’s Wish: ‘I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,’ ” Politico, September 18, 2020.
461the trio of Trump justices: The case was FDA v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 592 U.S. ___ (2021). Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Revives Abortion-Pill Restriction,” New York Times, January 12, 2021.
461the first two: June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, 591 U.S. ___ (2020).
461Two hundred and seven members: The two Democratic congressmen who signed the amicus brief were Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Daniel Lipinski of Illinois.
461“an excellent vehicle”: Ed Whelan, “Best Opportunity the Supreme Court Will Ever Have to Overturn Roe,” National Review, November 9, 2020.
461“That little Richie Rich”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, February 5, 2017.
462had any final wishes: Author’s notes on conversation between Jennifer Ferguson and Melissa Mills, February 18, 2017.
462drawn in a white carriage: Norma McCorvey, text message to Henry Taylor, September 8, 2010. Courtesy of Henry Taylor.
462“She had so many”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Jennifer Ferguson, February 18, 2017.
462obituary was online within minutes: Emily Langer, “Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade Decision Legalizing Abortion Nationwide, Dies at 69,” Washington Post, February 18, 2017.
462“She didn’t want you”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Jennifer Ferguson, February 18, 2017.
462“I was like, ‘Okay’ ”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 25, 2019.
463“like now you can start”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 25, 2019.
463“in the middle”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 25, 2019.
463in a profile I’d written: Joshua Prager, “The Accidental Activist,” Vanity Fair, February 2013.
463she’d worried to her sisters: Shelley Thornton, text message to Jennifer Ferguson and Melissa Mills, January 25, 2017. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
463a London tabloid: The Daily Mail assigned Ben Ashford to the story. He emailed me on February 20, 2017, noting that I would be “properly compensated” for any tips.
463“Roe’s baby”: The ad was created by Ryan Bomberger, Chief Creative Officer of the Radiance Foundation, http://www.radiance.life/roe.
463get a DNA sample: Frank Di Bugnara, interview with the author, February 24, 2019.
463obituary was true to Norma: Langer, “Norma McCorvey.”
463“bickered over”: Andy Klein, “Abortion for Grins,” Dallas Observer, March 6, 1997.
463words of a master’s thesis: Barnard, “Jane Roe Gone Rogue.”
463“It would have been nice”: Keri Blakinger, “Norma McCorvey: Abortion Case’s ‘Roe’ Dies at 69; Texan behind landmark decision ‘at peace at end,’ ” Houston Chronicle, February 19, 2017.
464“My mom just wasn’t”: Kaki King, interview with the author, July 31, 2012.
464portrait Annie Leibovitz had taken: Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag, Women (New York: Random House, 1999), 138.
464“when she died”: “Terry Hopes Docu Sets the Record Straight on McCorvey,” Defend Life, July/August 2017.
464“It was like, no!”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 20, 2017.
464he was noncommittal: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 20, 2017.
464pay for police, catering: Karen Garnett, interview with the author, February 22, 2017.
465Shelley had called: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 21, 2017.
465“I’m thinking”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 21, 2017.
465“start a new chapter”: Melissa Mills, text message to Shelley Thornton and Jennifer Ferguson, February 24, 2017. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
465“It doesn’t matter”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Eric Heumann, February 24, 2017.
465“She came out good”: Author’s notes on conversation between Melissa Mills and Eric Heumann, February 24, 2017.
465would be in touch: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 24, 2017.
466“In my fifty years”: Henry Taylor, interview with the author, February 24, 2017.
466“I no longer believe”: Rob Schenck, Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love (New York: Harper, 2018), 324.
466“People were exasperated”: Rob Schenck, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
466Melissa had said no: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 20, 2017.
468Melissa set a blue: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, May 19, 2020.
469“about me being the face”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, July 26, 2018.
469“I don’t know how”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, February 28, 2017.
469“a childhood of almost unrelenting”: “Roe v. Wade, Part 1: Who Was Jane Roe?” The Daily (podcast), New York Times, July 23, 2018.
469a Times headline: Jenny Gross and Aimee Ortiz, “Roe v. Wade Plaintiff Was Paid to Switch Sides, Documentary Says,” New York Times, May 19, 2020.
469Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Tweet, May 19, 2020: “Wow: Norma McCorvey (aka “Roe” of Roe v Wade) revealed on her deathbed that she was paid by right-wing operatives to flip her stance on reproductive rights. So, like many right-wing operations, it turns out a huge part of the anti-choice movement was a scam the entire time.”
469the president of NARAL: Ilyse Hogue, tweet, May 19, 2020, 2:10 pm. “Jane Roe’s (Roe v. Wade) conversion to become anti-abortion was all a paid act according to a new documentary. This is an extreme example of precisely why we do not base rights on individual experiences and feelings. Norma McCorvey had a very troubled life and was exploited for a far-right agenda in deeply immoral ways. The architects of the anti-choice movement depended on these kinds of strategies to weaponize abortion access and stop social progress.”
469compensation that averaged: Ron Allen, Norma McCorvey’s accountant, email to the author, May 25, 2020.
470“That was just like”: Roe vs. Roe, film.
470“They’ll take anything”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 24, 2015.
470“The individual’s life”: Angela Bonavoglia, interview with the author, August 10, 2018.
470“sharing DNA”: Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care (New York: Atria, 2009), 379.
470“I just hoped”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, August 1, 2019.
471“Just trying to get through it”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, December 10, 2017.
471“warden”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, July 8, 2016.
471“A nice guy”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, November 10, 2016.
472“she went on”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, May 18, 2017.
472he’d wanted to reach out: Todd Peterson, interview with the author, March 5, 2019.
472“My wife would get”: Todd Peterson, interview with the author, March 5, 2019.
473“We can go back”: Todd Peterson, interview with the author, February 27, 2019.
473“It’s a daily process”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 25, 2019.
473“I want everyone”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
473A novel called: Christopher Bauer, Jane’s Baby (Rosaryville, MD: Intrigue, 2018), 275.
473“Norma McCorvey Daughter”: Google Trends, accessed May 18, 2020.
473“Nobody was ever”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 28, 2019.
473“This person”: Christopher Signil, Race, Faith, and Politics: The Dilemma, the Deal Breakers and the New Direction (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma Media, 2012), 105.
473“She’s not the Roe baby”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, August 25, 2018.
473she’d only cared to know: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
474“Please God”: Shelley Thornton, letter to Melissa Mills, September 1, 1993. Courtesy of Melissa Mills.
474“My association with Roe”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 28, 2019.
474“I have no attachments”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 28, 2019.
474not heard of Justice Blackmun: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
474“Reality is a cruel”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
474“If you’re fine”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
475“It’s not a secret”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, August 15, 2018.
475“The prospect of me”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
475“a compensation for the pang”: W. B. Yeats, “Among School Children” (1928), in The Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1933).
475“If I had allowed”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
475“I’ve always empathized”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
476“It’s really helping me”: Shelley Thornton, email to the author, January 7, 2021.
476“a braver person”: Wendy Craig, Zoom call with the author, and Shelley Thornton, February 17, 2021.
476“I just have no personal”: Shelley Thornton, text message to Jennifer Ferguson, September 2020. Courtesy of Jennifer Ferguson.
477“Atchafalaya”: John McPhee, “Atchafalaya,” New Yorker, February 23, 1987, 39.
477“I know this water”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, October 28, 2020.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
479Abortion and Divorce: Mary Ann Glendon, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law: American Failures, European Challenges. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
479“each side views”: Gilbert Yale Steiner, The Futility of Family Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 1981), 71.
479“astonishing” one-dimensionality: Lauren Robel, review of Abortion and Divorce in Western Law by Mary Ann Glendon, in Constitutional Commentary 6 no. 115 (1989): 135.
479blithely echoed: Glendon wrote that U.S. abortion law was marked by a “studied rejection of efforts to preserve the fetus,” and that “Only in America has a vast profit-marking industry grown up around abortion.” Mary Ann Glendon, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law: American Failures, European Challenges. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 20, 22.
479“coming to terms with real”: Kristin Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 2.
479“giving voice”: Laurence H. Tribe, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (New York: Norton, 1992), 6.
479“a choice of words”: Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood, 2.
480“a mockery”: Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood, 2.
480Katha Pollitt notes: Katha Pollitt, PRO: Reclaiming Abortion, (London: Picador, 2014), 14.
480Katie Watson: Katie Watson, Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 9.
480“a criminal”: Randall Terry, Voice of Resistance, “Episode 1019: Does Anyone Care about Norma McCorvey?,” YouTube, May 11, 2017.
481“happiest moment”: Jennifer Ferguson, Facebook post, November 10, 2012.
481“I want everyone”: Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 26, 2019.
481it was “accurate”: Jennifer Ferguson, interview with the author, January 14, 2021. Shelley Thornton, interview with the author, February 14, 2021. Melissa Mills, interview with the author, April 8, 2019.
481“You’ve done great”: Melissa Mills, interview with the author, April 11, 2021.
482“undoubtedly the best-known”: Ronald Dworkin, Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, And Individual Freedom (New York: Vintage, 1993), 102.
483‘I’m your mama’: Velma Gross, interview with the author, January 23, 2015.
484“I saw more of our daughters”: Susan Sheehan, “When Will the Book Be Done?,” New York Times Magazine, April 15, 1990.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
485“I used to not”: Anne Lamott, “bird by bird with annie,” Independent Lens, PBS, October 8, 1999.
485preferred your “version”: Norma McCorvey, interview with the author, March 24, 2015.