Still, the Dallas waitress' challenge to the Texas law resulted in a sweeping change of the laws across the country. Texas is once again the epicenter of the abortion fight after the Supreme Court declined to block a restrictive state law banning abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy and allowing anyone in the U.
Thornton is the daughter of Norma McCorvey, the woman originally identified in court documents by the pseudonym Jane Roe. McCorvey, who revealed her identity shortly after the landmark case, died at 69 in after a complicated public life. McCorvey was initially pro-choice, then switched to an anti-abortion stance following a religious conversion, and then revealed in a stunning deathbed confession in a documentary that she was paid exorbitant money by a religious organization to pose as an anti-abortion activist even though she didn't believe in that view.
Thornton was born in a Dallas hospital in as the third of McCorvey's three children, none of whom she raised. She was 2 years old by the time the Roe v. Wade ruling came down and living with her adoptive parents in Texas, and her existence itself became a symbol to anti-abortion activists. Thornton's adoptive mother, Ruth Schmidt, told her when she was young that she had been adopted, and Thornton said she often yearned to know about her biological parents.
She already knew her two other daughters, but had only scant information about Thornton. An investigation by the National Enquirer led to Thornton being found as a teen living outside Seattle and the publication informed her that she was McCorvey's biological daughter. However, at her request, her name was kept out of the ensuing article, which ran in Thornton began "shaking all over and crying" when learning the difficult truth that she was the child of the plaintiff in the famous case.
The abortion debate entered Thornton's own life in , when she became pregnant at She decided to have the child, but didn't understand why the abortion decision should be "a government concern. He has tackled every assignment from interviewing astronauts on the International Space Station to prison inmates training service dogs for military veterans. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.
Share this —. Follow today. More Brands. By Scott Stump. Texas abortion ruling brings growing fallout Sept. She decided to have the child, but didn't understand why the abortion decision should be "a government concern. Thornton, who is now a mother of three living in Arizona, nearly met McCorvey in person in before an angry phone conversation derailed the meeting. McCorvey said Thornton should have thanked her for not aborting her.
Thornton has since met her two half sisters, but she did not reunite with McCorvey before her death. After years of keeping her secret and worrying that someone else would publicly share her story, she decided to share it herself. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.
Fitz, too, was expected to wear a white coat, but he wanted to be a writer, and in , a decade out of college, he took a job at The National Enquirer. Fitz loved his work, and he was about to land a major scoop.
The answers Shelley had sought all her life were suddenly at hand. She listened as Hanft began to tell what she knew of her birth mother: that she lived in Texas, that she was in touch with the eldest of her three daughters, and that her name was Norma McCorvey.
The name was not familiar to Shelley or Ruth. That name Shelley recognized. The bit of the movie she watched had left her with the thought that Jane Roe was indecent.
Still, Shelley struggled to grasp what exactly Hanft was saying. The investigator handed Shelley a recent article about Norma in People magazine, and the reality sank in. All her life, Shelley had wanted to know the facts of her birth. Having idly mused as a girl that her birth mother was a beautiful actor, she now knew that her birth mother was synonymous with abortion. Ruth spoke up: She wanted proof. Hanft and Fitz said that a DNA test could be arranged.
But there was no mistake: Shelley had been born in Dallas Osteopathic Hospital, where Norma had given birth, on June 2, The evidence was unassailable. Hanft and Fitz had a question for Shelley: Was she pro-choice or pro-life? Two days earlier, Shelley had been a typical teenager on the brink of another summer. The question—pro-life or pro-choice? Shelley was afraid to answer. She wondered why she had to choose a side, why anyone did.
Hanft and Fitz revealed at the restaurant that they were working for the Enquirer. They explained that the tabloid had recently found the child Roseanne Barr had relinquished for adoption as a teenager, and that the pair had reunited. Fitz said he was writing a similar story about Norma and Shelley. And he was on deadline. Shelley and Ruth were aghast. Back home, Shelley wondered if talking to Norma might ease the situation or even make the tabloid go away. A phone call was arranged.
The news that Norma was seeking her child had angered some in the pro-life camp. She asked Norma about her father. Norma told her little except his first name—Bill—and what he looked like.
Shelley also asked about her two half sisters, but Norma wanted to speak only about herself and Shelley, the two people in the family tied to Roe. She told Shelley that they could meet in person. The Enquirer , she said, could help. Norma wanted the very thing that Shelley did not—a public outing in the pages of a national tabloid.
Shelley now saw that she carried a great secret. To speak of it even in private was to risk it spilling into public view. Still, she asked a friend from secretarial school named Christie Chavez to call Hanft and Fitz.
The aim was to have a calm third party hear them out. Chavez took careful notes. But it would not kill the story. Ruth turned to a lawyer, a friend of a friend. He suggested that Hanft may have secretly recorded her; Shelley, he said, should trust no one. He sent a letter to the Enquirer , demanding that the paper publish no identifying information about his client and that it cease contact with her. But it cautioned her again that cooperation was the safest option.
Shelley felt stuck. To come out as the Roe baby would be to lose the life, steady and unremarkable, that she craved. Norma, too, was upset. Her plan for a Roseanne-style reunion was coming apart. She decided to try to patch things up. Gloria Allred … has sent a letter to the Nat. Enquirer stating that we have no intensions of [exploiting] you or your family. The story quoted Hanft. The child was not identified but was said to be pro-life and living in Washington State.
The National Right to Life Committee seized upon the story. If Roe was overturned, he went on, countless others would be saved too. Perhaps because the Roe baby went unnamed, the Enquirer story got little traction, picked up only by a few Gannett papers and The Washington Times.
But it left a deep mark on Shelley. Having begun work as a secretary at a law firm, she worried about the day when another someone would come calling and tell the world—against her will—who she was. S helley was now seeing a man from Albuquerque named Doug.
Nine years her senior, he was courteous and loved cars. And from their first date, at a Taco Bell, Shelley found that she could be open with him. Or is it not cool? You tell me. Eight months had passed since the Enquirer story when, on a Sunday night in February , there was a knock at the door of the home Shelley shared with her mother.
She opened it to find a young woman who introduced herself as Audrey Lavin. Lavin told Shelley that she would do nothing without her consent.
Shelley felt herself flush, and turned Lavin away.
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