In testimony for a Senate subcommittee in 1998, McCorvey said: 'I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name.'. 'I don't understand why it's a government concern,' she said. The third child was the one whose conception led to Roe. She had been among only five women out of a class of 1,600 to graduate with a law degree from the University of Texas in 1967. There isn't much info so far, but apparently more She sued the Dallas attorney general Henry Wade over a Texas law that made it a crime to terminate a pregnancy except in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother's life was in danger. She shook when she felt anxious, and she felt anxious, she said, about everything. She was soon suffering symptoms of depression toofeeling, she said, sleepy and sad. But she confided in no one, not her boyfriend and not her mother. She would call town halls asking for information. Ill go with whatever you tell me.. [1][2], Shelley Lynn Thornton was born to Norma McCorvey on June 2, 1970, at the Dallas Osteopathic Hospital. Her religious conversion led her to give up her female lover, Connie Gonzales. She was still afraid to let her secret out, but she hated keeping it in. Despite everything, Shelley sometimes entertained the hope of a relationship with Norma. Victims of rape or incest would be able to have the pregnancy terminated and not feel coerced into motherhood. Though the decision has never been overturned, anti-abortionists have prompted hundreds of states laws since then narrowing the scope of the ruling. I would go, Somebody has to know! Shelley told me. 'A lot of people didn't know I existed,' she said, adding she fears the world blames her for abortion being legal. "[2] When Thornton asked McCorvey about her biological father, McCorvey said little: she told Thornton that his first name was Bill and she described what he looked like. Shelley Lynn Thornton, now 51, is the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey and spoke on the record for the first time in 2021. Over the coming decade, my interest would spread from that one child to Norma McCorveys other children, and from them to Norma herself, and to Roe v. Wade and the larger battle over abortion in America. Months after filing Roe, Norma met a woman named Connie Gonzales, almost 17 years her senior, and moved into her home. Of course, the child had a real name too. We both have probably about the same patience level with things, Thornton said. A short time later, she underwent another religious conversion and became a Roman Catholic and left Operation Rescue. McCorvey is pictured in July 2011. It was something of an underworld, Jonah said. Im supposed to thank you for getting knocked up and then giving me away, Thornton recalled saying. Still, the Dallas waitress' challenge to the Texas law resulted in a sweeping change of the laws across the country. She never did anything in her life to get that privilege back. The papers helped me establish the true details of her life. Religious certitude left her uncomfortable. Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the landmark abortions rights case, gave birth to Shelley Lynn Thornton before the law was changed. Twenty-six states are likely to ban it if Roe v. Wade is formally overturned, essentially outlawing abortion in more than half of the country. Im supposed to thank you for getting knocked up and then giving me away. Shelley went on: I told her I would never, ever thank her for not aborting me. Mother and daughter hung up their phones in anger. She struggled to see where her birth mother ended and she herself began. This story has been shared 411,273 times. 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. Now that the leaked draft has been made final, the decision removes the federal right to abortion in America, leaving it up to elected officials in each state to decide whether or not women should have access to abortions. Hanft hugged Shelley. 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.S. to sue abortion providers or others who help women get the procedure after that time frame. She did her best to keep Norma confined, she said, in a dark little metal box, wrapped in chains and locked.. I want her to experience this joythe good that it brings, she told me. Shelley Lynn Thornton is the baby of Roe vs. Wade plaintiff Norma McCorvey. She bore three children, each of them placed for adoption. We both like the same colors, we both like to do the same crafts and things like that. Shelley Lynn Thornton, 51, the woman whose conception led to the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, has revealed herself publicly for the first time as the "Roe baby." Create your free. EXCLUSIVE Revealed: Bungling road chiefs put drivers at greater risk on smart motorways because orange paint Trendy hard floors could be to blame for your foot pain (and there is a simple way to stop it), Scientists discover what happens seconds after you die - activity in the brain and heart RAMPS UP, Scientists can now read your MIND: AI turns people's thoughts into text in real-time. I was just a pawn, and I wasn't going to let her do it. PRAGER: So her name is Shelley Lynn Thornton. She told ABC News through her spokesperson, "Too many times has a woman's choice, voice, and individual freedom been decided for her by others. And she began working to connect other women with the children they had relinquished. The court heard arguments twice, and then waited until after Republican president Richard Nixon's re-election, in November 1972. And, she reflected, I guess I dont understand why its a government concern. It had upset her that the Enquirer had described her as pro-life, a term that connoted, in her mind, a bunch of religious fanatics going around and doing protests. But neither did she embrace the term pro-choice: Norma was pro-choice, and it seemed to Shelley that to have an abortion would render her no different than Norma. When I read, in early 2010, that Norma had not had an abortion, I began to wonder whether the child, who would then be an adult of almost 40, was aware of his or her background. But Shelley was not able to lock her birth mother away. Shelley Lynn Thornton, the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey -- the woman behind the Roe v. Wade abortion case -- issued a statement to ABC News on Monday following the Supreme Court's . She married at the age of 16, but separated shortly after while she was pregnant. When the Roe case was decided, in 1973, the adoptive parents were oblivious of its connection to their daughter, now 2 and a half, a toddler partial to spaghetti and pork chops and Cheez Whiz casserole. Ruth in particular, Shelley would recall, felt it was important that she know she had been chosen. But even the chosen wonder about their roots. She was born in June of 1970, a few months after Norma McCorvey filed Roe and a few years before the case was decided. Shelley Lynn Thornton, photographed in Tucson this summer. She was not at all eager to become a mother, she recalled; Doug intimated, she said, that she should consider having an abortion. Decades after her father left home, it would occur to Shelley that the genesis of her unease preceded his disappearance. Thornton has kept her personal views on abortion close to my chest, not wanting to be used like McCorvey was. But the tremor would return. The name was not familiar to Shelley or Ruth. She told Shelley that they could meet in person. She had casual affairs with men, and one brief marriage at age 16. Melissa Mills is one of them (pictured in 2021). I have wished that for her forever and have never told anyone.. Norma struggled to answer. She was three days old when Billy drove her home. When tenants in the complex moved out, he took her with him to rummage through whatever they had left behinddolls and books and things like that, Shelley recalled. However, abortion rights have been under threat in recent months as Republican-led states move to tighten rules - with some seeking to ban all abortions after six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant - andhave passed various abortion restrictions in defiance of the Roe precedent in recent years. Billy and Ruth fought. The motion moved through the courts until it was ultimately denied by the Supreme Court in 2005. Thornton spent the first 19 years of her life without knowing McCorvey was her birth mother. He had then handled the adoption of Normas child. As a teenager, she said her biggest concerns were "shoes and boys." Shelley felt a rush of joy: The woman who had let her go now wanted to know her. 'I can deal with that. Have scientists finally created a jab to keep ALL flu strains at bay? That was fine by her. Being described as pro-life in the Enquirer, she said, felt like being associated with a bunch of religious fanatics going around and doing protests.. Enquirer stating that we have no intensions of [exploiting] you or your family. According to detailed notes taken by Ruth on conversations with her lawyer, who was in contact with various parties, Norma even denied giving consent to the Enquirer to search for her child. She never expressed genuine feeling for me or genuine remorse for doing the things that she did, saying the things that she did over and over and over again. Normas adoption lawyer, Henry McCluskey, had handled Shelleys adoption; Ruth recalled McCluskey. McCorveywas baptized an evangelical Christian in the 1990s before network TV cameras by Benham, who was the leader of Operation Rescue, now known as Operation Save America, Norma McCorveystands with her friend Meredith Champion, 9, at an Operation Rescue rally in downtown Dallas in January 1997. When someones pregnant with a baby, she reflected, and they dont want that baby, that person develops knowing theyre not wanted. But as a teenager, Shelley had not yet had such thoughts. She wanted to know them, to share her thoughts, to tell them about her father or about how much she hated science and gym. British MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo 'was secretly battling bowel cancer' before he was found dead in a Top conservative think tank takes the Biden administration to court for Prince Harry's immigration records - Police hunt for Brixton killer after woman in her 30s is stabbed to death in broad daylight near O2 Academy. She was baptized an evangelical Christianbefore network TV cameras by Benham, who was the leader of Operation Rescue, now known as Operation Save America. "In his majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun noted that a 'pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate process is complete,'" Prager writes. ', Shelley Thorton was adopted as a baby and raised by Ruth and Billy Thornton, a married couple. Norma won her case. Roe was 'Jane Roe,' a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, a single mother pregnant for the third time, who wanted an abortion. She said she couldnt afford to travel to one of the handful of states where it would have been legal. They asked the Enquirer not to reveal Thornton's identity and the magazine respected her wishes. But he did not identify them, or Norma, or say anything about the Roe lawsuit that Norma had filed three months earlier. Two years after the Enquirer article and as an unmarried 20-year-old, Thornton discovered she was pregnant. She confirmed that the adoption had been arranged by McCluskey. Hanft, though, attested in writing that, to the contrary, she had started looking for Shelley in conjunction [with] and with permission from Ms. McCorvey. The tabloid had a written record of Normas gratitude. Shelley Lynn Thornton was publicly identified in an excerpt published from an upcoming book Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe in the 1973 court case, left, and her attorney Gloria Allred hold hands as they leave the Supreme Court on April 26, 1989. She admitted before she died that she made the change in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars. When Shelley was 7, Billy found work as a mechanic in Houston. The pair spoke on the phone in 1989, Norma McCorvey aka 'Jane Roe' (left) and her attorney Gloria Allred at the Supreme Court in 1989, the year she made her identity known. In 'The Family Roe:' the human side of the landmark abortion case 'Roe v. Wade' (NPR, May 9, 2022, interview with Prager, intro states, "The baby, often referred to as Baby Roe, is Shelly Lynn Thornton, now a grown woman whose story is at the center of Joshua Prager's book The Family Roe."). ', 'It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives.'. She told me the next month, when we met for the first time on a rainy day in Tucson, Arizona, that she also wished to be unburdened of her secret. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Fitz loved his work, and he was about to land a major scoop. Years later, when Billys brother adopted a baby girl, Ruth decided that she wanted to adopt a child too. [4], In a 2021 interview, Thornton stated that she was not pro-choice or pro-life. The 1973 Supreme Court ruling made abortion a federally protected right. I had assumed, having never given the matter much thought, that the plaintiff who had won the legal right to have an abortion had in fact had one. Joe cast aside his own grandkid to protect his 'It's better than the noise and the dirt of London! Norma was ambivalent about abortion. In response, a journalist for the National Enquirer found Thornton as a teenager and told her about her prenatal history, which made her sad. They hadnt even ordered dinner, but they hurried out. I think she was taken advantage of by both sides, but I think she also took advantage of both sides, Thornton told ABC News. When Norma McCorvey became pregnant with her third child, Henry McCluskey turned to the couple raising her second. But in 2009, five years after Connie had a stroke, Norma left her. Shelley Lynn Thornton was born to Norma McCorvey on June 2, 1970, at the Dallas Osteopathic Hospital. "Norma was pro-choice, and it seemed to Shelley that to have an abortion would render her no different than Norma," Prager wrote. Her name was not yet widely known when, shortly before the march, three bullets pierced her home and car. [disputed discuss], Many years later, after Thornton learned of her identity as the "Roe baby", she engaged in telephone conversations with McCorvey. Although McCorvey had sought an abortion, she was prohibited from doing so by the laws in Texas at that time. 'This is my deathbed confession,' she said. I'm keeping a secret, but I hate it,' she said, in an adapted excerpt from Prager's new book'The Family Roe: An American Story', published in The Atlantic. In the event that she didnt already know that Norma McCorvey was her birth mother, a phone call could have upended her life. She says she has never forgiven McCorvey for trying to 'use her for publicity' when she was a teenager and discovered who she was after being confronted by National Enquirer reporters her biological mother had enlisted. Secrets and lies are, like, the two worst things in the whole world, she said. McCorvey had given up two baby daughters already and did not want to have a third child. She knew only, she explained, that she wanted to one day find a partner who would stay with her always. At some level, Norma seemed to understand Shelleys caution, her bitterness. In 1960, at the age of 17, she married a military man from her hometown, and the couple moved to an Air Force base in Texas. Only the following January did it offer its historic seven-to-two decision - overturning the Texas laws and setting a legal precedent that has had ramifications in all 50 states. His great-grandfather Reginald and his grandfather Reginald and his father, Reginald, had all gone to Harvard and become eminent doctors. Norma had told her own story in two autobiographies, but she was an unreliable narrator. They soared on swings, unaware that happy playgrounds had always made Norma ache for themthe daughters she had let go. It now seemed to her that abortion law ought to be free of the influences of religion and politics. (The first was a pioneering pathologist who coined the term appendicitis.) The more people Shelley knew, the more she worried that one of them might learn of her connection to Roe. The publication had thendescribed her as pro-life because she had told the journalist 'she couldn't see herself having an abortion. Well ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook.