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Ampvideo_youtubeVox.com40 minutes ago
So says Norma McCorvey at the beginning of AKA Jane Roe, a new documentary about her life as the plaintiff in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. When McCorvey, identified in court papers as Jane Roe, became pregnant in 1969, abortion was illegal in her state. She sued for the right toBut now theres another chapter in McCorveys story. In AKA Jane Roe, filmed shortly before her death, she says that her transformation into an anti-abortion advocate was an act, and that she was paid to serve as a trophy for conservative groups. I took their money and they put me out in front of, to a husband who also abused her, and had a child who was ultimately adopted by her mother. She left her husband and had another child, who was also adopted. At 21, she became pregnant a third time. By then she was living on the streets, she says in AKA Jane Roe, and addicted to drugs and alcohol.But privately, McCorvey was conflicted about her role in the abortion debate. On occasion, Norma would call me after shed been drinking, and she would say things like, the playground is empty because of me, Taft, who also appears in AKA Jane Roe, told Vox. She had a lot of ambivalence, even abouBut with AKA Jane Roe, the narrative of McCorveys life has changed yet again. In the film, McCorvey tells Sweeney that she was, essentially, playing a part when she disavowed abortion as an activist with Operation Rescue. Im a good actress, she says.And while McCorvey assures Sweeney in AKA Jane Roe that Im not acting now, shes always been a skilled architect of her own story, Ziegler said. People on social media and in the media in general have been inclined to frame her as kind of a victim, someone who was manipulated by these social movBut the story of the former Jane Roe is also a reminder that if more patients do become plaintiffs in abortion cases, Americans shouldnt expect them to perfect symbols for reproductive rights or any other cause.