Journalist explores life of Real Jane Roe's Family
Author Joshua Prager spent 11 years researching Norma McCorvey and her daughters
Author Joshua Prager read a few years ago that the woman involved in the Roe v. Wade case didn’t get the abortion that she sought. The child was born anyway. It compelled him to research further until it culminated in a new book.
“I realized that there was a big story I wanted to tell, to somehow humanize this big thing, this big issue in America and to tell the story not through politics, but people,” Prager said. “And that was really how it all got going.”
He found the daughter Shelley, who was put up for adoption, through extensive investigative work and building trust with interview subjects. Shelley had a tense relationship with her mother that is the basis for the book’s story.
The Family Roe: An American Story, personalizes the Roe v. Wade case by focusing on the plaintiff and her family’s experience before, during and after the landmark decision. Prager details the life of Norma McCorvey and the daughters she left behind. McCorvey was the plaintiff in the successful lawsuit.
Prager reveals unknown parts of antiabortion and abortion rights history. Along with the focus on a troubled figure in feminist history, there is also considerations of the impact race, money and religion have on the abortion debate.
McCorvey’s early life of sex, alcoholism and domestic trouble begin the lead-up to the climax of her life—the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The book shows the tense relationship McCorvey had with Sarah Weddington, one of her two lawyers. Prager also writes in great detail about Linda Coffee, the other attorney who hasn’t been as historically credited as much for her role. Coffee didn’t like the way Weddington handled McCorvey, according to Prager.
“There was this sort of difficult relationship,” Prager said. “She helped them and she was good for the movement. But they did not treat her particularly well.”
McCorvey remained a problematic figure within feminism after the pro-choice side won the case. She felt that her role as a client gave her the right to in part lead the movement, which was something with which more well-known and respected feminists disagreed.
“They didn't invite her to their book parties,” Prager said. “The few times when they would have for an event or be at a Senate hearing or something, very rarely did they let her even speak. They would sort of speak for her.”
That treatment along with a desire to make money compelled McCorvey to leave the pro-choice movement for the opposition’s side. Flip Benham and others recruited her successfully to the antiabortion movement, where she was used in books, speeches, presentations and promotional material.
One of the more fascinating parts of the book is its emphasis on how much both sides can personally profit financially. Flip Benham, who heads Operation Rescue, said that—while he wasn’t personally motivated by money—others were. As Prager said Benham puts it, “it’s a business and people want a piece of the pie from both sides.”
Several other prominent figures, including abortion providers Charlotte Taft and Curtis Boyd are featured throughout the book. One of the more intriguing subjects is Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School who went on to become an icon within the antiabortion movement. Scholars have by and large ignored Jefferson’s role while much of abortion rights history focuses on the role white men had played within building the opposition to Roe v. Wade. Prager shows Jefferson’s life and impact as an advocate.
“It was a way for me to write about race,” Prager said. “It was a way for me to write about someone more than anyone who really is the architect of the pro-life movement recognized today. She understood the power to politicize abortion.”
The book is available on Amazon and in bookstores nationwide.