# Plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, says she was paid by right-wing groups to publicly turn against abortion **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2020, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157 "2020-05-20T00:31:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/1 "2020-05-20T00:31:41Z")
I don’t have a debate for this. MPSIMS seemed too innocent for this so…here it is. Why am I not surprised? Conservatives literally need to manufacture outrage otherwise they’ve got nothing except the colossal assholes they are staring back at them in the mirror. > [@](#): > > Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, says in the forthcoming documentary “AKA Jane Roe” that she was paid a significant amount of money to promote antiabortion causes. > > SOURCE: [Roe V. Wade's Norma McCorvey Says She Was Paid to Campaign Against Abortion](https://www.businessinsider.com/norma-mccorvey-jane-roe-was-paid-to-publicly-campaign-against-abortion-2020-5) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/2 "2020-05-20T00:52:30Z")
To me, that stance always reeked of insincerity. Those groups also could have done more to reduce the number of abortions by financing birth control and prenatal care than by doing this. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/3 "2020-05-20T00:53:47Z")
Wow. Very interesting article! I’d like to see a list of all the donors to her and Operation Save America. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/4 "2020-05-20T01:27:34Z")
If the documentary has, um, solid documentation of improper payments (i.e. money received prior to her “conversion”), then it’s a damning commentary on the ethics of anti-abortion rights advocates. If it’s basically her say-so, then I’m not impressed. Though she had an important historical role, McCorvey’s credibility has suffered from her about-faces. In general, I’m dubious about the veracity of deathbed renunciations. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/5 "2020-05-20T01:35:18Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > …Though she had an important historical role, McCorvey’s credibility has suffered from her about-faces. > > In general, I’m dubious about the veracity of deathbed renunciations. So, you are fine with her veracity prior to all this but doubt a deathbed confession? Doesn’t the law give special consideration to deathbed confessions/declarations with the notion being the person really has no reason to lie at that point and are, maybe, trying to unburden their soul? (or something like that…I really don’t know why they give it special consideration) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/6 "2020-05-20T01:52:19Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > So, you are fine with her veracity prior to all this but doubt a deathbed confession? I didn’t see her “finding God” and turning against her Roe v. Wade backers as a big deal, and suspected at the time that her conversion had a lot to do with seeking the attention that she felt abortion rights supporters were no longer giving her. Is her latest claim another cry for attention? People tend to give undue credence to those who dramatically reverse their views on controversial subjects. There’s a one-time fervent anti-GMOer of the crop-vandalizing persuasion who switched to being an outspoken supporter of genetic modification technology. That’s nice, but the conversion doesn’t lend him super credibility. I’ll wait to see McCorvey’s documentation before leaping with glee. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/7 "2020-05-20T02:02:34Z")
Damn. I don’t know what to think, but what a difficult, sad, and complicated life she had. She would have been five years younger when she died than my parents are now, and she looks about twenty years older ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/8 "2020-05-20T02:20:18Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I didn’t see her “finding God” and turning against her Roe v. Wade backers as a big deal, and suspected at the time that her conversion had a lot to do with seeking the attention that she felt abortion rights supporters were no longer giving her. Is her latest claim another cry for attention? I’m gonna go with “no” on this since she has been dead for three years and I don’t think her health was very good when she made these statements. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/9 "2020-05-20T02:30:27Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Damn. I don’t know what to think, but what a difficult, sad, and complicated life she had. Yeah, but she was just living with her choices and she set aside morality for money. I don’t pity her all that much. And I was today years old when I realized your username is not Fretful Porcupine. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/10 "2020-05-20T02:51:34Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I’m gonna go with “no” on this since she has been dead for three years and I don’t think her health was very good when she made these statements. _Always hoped that I’d be an Apostle Knew that I would make it if I tried Then when we retire we can write the Gospels So they’ll all still talk about us when we’ve died_ ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/11 "2020-05-20T02:53:35Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > _Always hoped that I’d be an Apostle > Knew that I would make it if I tried > Then when we retire we can write the Gospels > So they’ll all still talk about us when we’ve died_ She was already immortalized by virtue of the Roe v. Wade case. Anything she did after is a footnote at best. Put another way, she didn’t have to do anything at all to be talked about after her death. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/12 "2020-05-20T03:14:07Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > If the documentary has, um, solid documentation of improper payments (i.e. money received prior to her “conversion”), then it’s a damning commentary on the ethics of anti-abortion rights advocates. Ok… > [@](#): > > Sweeney shows the video of McCorvey’s confession to her friends and acquaintances on the pro-abortion and anti-abortion sides, including pro-choice activist Charlotte Taft who, on the verge of tears, says, “That just really hurts because it’s big stakes. It’s just really big stakes.” > > Reverend Schenck, the much more reasonable of the two evangelical leaders featured in the film, also watches the confession and is taken aback. But he’s not surprised, and easily corroborates, saying, “I had never heard her say anything like this… But I knew what we were doing. And there were times when I was sure she knew. And I wondered, Is she playing us? What I didn’t have the guts to say was, because I know damn well we’re playing her.” > > Reverend Schenck admits that McCorvey was “a target,” a “needy” person in need of love and protection, and that “as clergy,” people like Schenck and Benham were “used to those personalities” and thus easily able to exploit her weaknesses. He also confirms that she was “coached on what to say” in her anti-abortion speeches. Benham denies McCorvey was paid; Schenck insists she was, saying that “at a few points, she was actually on the payroll, as it were.” AKA Jane Roe finds documents disclosing at least $456,911 in “benevolent gifts” from the anti-abortion movement to McCorvey. > > SOURCE: [Jane Roe Confesses Anti-Abortion Conversion ‘All an Act’ Paid for by the Christian Right](https://www.thedailybeast.com/jane-roe-confesses-anti-abortion-conversion-all-an-act-paid-for-by-the-christian-right) ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/13 "2020-05-20T05:07:57Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > And I was today years old when I realized your username is not Fretful Porcupine. (blink blink) (looks at the user name) :eek: !!! ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/14 "2020-05-20T05:35:06Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > So, you are fine with her veracity prior to all this but doubt a deathbed confession? > > Doesn’t the law give special consideration to deathbed confessions/declarations with the notion being the person really has no reason to lie at that point and are, maybe, trying to unburden their soul? (or something like that…I really don’t know why they give it special consideration) The idea was that no one who was about to meet their maker would do so with the stain of a very recent lie for which they had had no time to repent. So this idea obviously goes back to a time when you could presume someone believed in G-d, and also to a time when Catholic sensibilities prevailed. Even fairly recently, according to a lawyer I know “dying declarations” (the legal term for “deathbed confessions,” and other quoted statements admitted as exempted from hearsay rules) have to be made by a person who knows he is dying, and if the opposing side can bring in someone who can produce convincing evidence that the person wasn’t aware of the fact that he was dying, the final things he said won’t be admitted into evidence as “dying declarations.” So they are still given special legal status. I sort of wonder, though, if it’s not a _wink-wink_ because there’s no other way to get a dying person’s testimony admitted if it wasn’t recorded-- and even then, it might be dicey, since you can’t cross-examine a recording. I have a cousin who is a prosecutor in Chicago. I should ask him about it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/15 "2020-05-20T06:22:46Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > And I was today years old when I realized your username is not Fretful Porcupine. It’s a variant. > [@Ghost of Hamlet’s Father](#): > > I could a tale unfold whose lightest word > Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, > Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, > Thy knotted and combined locks to part, > And each particular hair stand on end, > Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. Thanks heavens for Bertie Wooster, to whom I owe my classical education. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/16 "2020-05-20T09:54:53Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > … > > And I was today years old when I realized your username is not Fretful Porcupine. Holy crap! To the OP, I guess that sleazeball with the crappy editing skills who tried to set up Mueller and Fauci wasn’t the first conservative sleazeball. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/17 "2020-05-20T14:41:58Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > She was already immortalized by virtue of the Roe v. Wade case. > > Anything she did after is a footnote at best. Your link quotes Reverend Schenck describing her as “a “needy” person in need of love and protection”. Evidently she also had a great need for attention, even near the end of her life. Remember that McCorvey did not have the greatest reputation for veracity. From her Wikipedia bio: \*"McCorvey revealed herself to the press as being “Jane Roe” soon after the decision was reached, stating that she had sought an abortion because she was unemployable and greatly depressed. In 1983, McCorvey told the press that she had been raped. In 1987, she said the rape claim was untrue… In 1994, McCorvey’s autobiography, I Am Roe, was published. At a signing of I Am Roe, McCorvey was befriended by Flip Benham, an evangelical minister and the national director of anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue. She converted to Christianity and was baptized on August 8, 1995, by Benham, in a Dallas, Texas, backyard swimming pool, an event that was filmed for national television. Two days later, she announced that she had quit her job at an abortion clinic and had become an advocate of Operation Rescue’s campaign to make abortion illegal. She voiced remorse for her part in the Supreme Court decision and said she had been a pawn of abortion activists. McCorvey’s second book, Won by Love, described her religious conversion and was published in 1998. In the book, she said that her change of heart occurred in 1995, when she saw a fetal development poster in an Operation Rescue office."\* OK, so maybe the upcoming video documents a quid pro quo in which she got money then converted to anti-abortion rights activism. Or it shows her being paid over a period of time to keep her from feeling too needy and flipping back to the pro-abortion rights side. Could someone construe her job at an abortion clinic as “payment” for her services during Roe v. Wade? (rest assured, someone will). I can understand the documentary’s producer(s) sitting on this supposed bombshell for over three years and then trying to make a splash in time for the 2020 Presidential election. If it has the goods and the impact is as hoped, then fine. I suspect though that if she’d dramatically revealed payments from pro-abortion rights advocates to keep her loyal during the Roe v. Wade era and the charges were trundled out during a critical election campaign, pro-choicers would be crying foul/conspiracy etc. Let’s see the evidence first. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/18 "2020-05-20T15:28:51Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > If the documentary has, um, solid documentation of improper payments (i.e. money received prior to her “conversion”), then it’s a damning commentary on the ethics of anti-abortion rights advocates. As if ethics beyond their primary goal at all cost to womens’ health and reproductive rights has ever been an issue with the anti-abortion crowd? These are people who deny fundamental science, lie about how and when procedures are performed, attempt to mislead, deceive, and intimidate women seeking an abortion, and occasionally bomb clinics and attack doctors in pursuit of their “pro-life” agenda. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/19 "2020-05-20T15:49:52Z")
Why does it even matter? Why should this one individual’s views on abortion be held as any more significant than any of the other 300 million individuals in this country? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157/20 "2020-05-20T17:47:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Why does it even matter? Why should this one individual’s views on abortion be held as any more significant than any of the other 300 million individuals in this country? I have the same reaction. And it’s the same reaction I had whenever previously confronted with the fact that “the original Jane Roe says now that she’d never have an abortion”. So what? It’s not like she was the only potential plaintiff they could have found at the time. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plaintiff-in-roe-v-wade-says-she-was-paid-by-right-wing-groups-to-publicly-turn-against-abortion/854157.md?page=2)