Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade Claimed on Deathbed That Right Wing Groups Paid Her to Go Against Abortion

Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade who eventually came out against abortion, made a shocking “deathbed confession” and claimed that right-wing Christian groups paid her to abandon the pro-choice movement, according to the Los Angeles Times.

During the documentary AKA Jane Roe, which premiers on FX Networks and Hulu on May 22, McCovey, who died in 2017, recounts her tumultuous relationship with the abortion rights debate, eventually claiming she only switched sides because she was paid by antiabortion groups.

In 1995, twenty years after Roe v. Wade, McCorvey announced she was a born-again Evangelical Christian and came out against abortion, which conservatives and anti-abortion figures used as a symbolic victory, but McCorvey has revealed an even more shocking truth.

“I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say,” she said in AKA Jane Roe. “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”

The documentary also includes scenes of McCorvey on the 2016 election night, during which she disclosed her support for Hillary Clinton, and joked that she believes President Donald Trump is responsible for several abortions, despite his views on the subject.

“I know how I felt when I found out that I was pregnant and I wasn’t going to let another woman feel that way — cheap, dirty and no good,” McCorvey said in the film. “Women make mistakes, and they make mistakes with men, and things happen. It’s just Mother Nature at work. You can’t stop it. You can’t explain it. It’s just something that happens.”

The film’s director Nick Sweeney told the Los Angeles Times that he wanted to avoid telling McCorvey’s story through an anti or pro-abortion rights lens, and even interviewed figures on both sides of the debate, including attorney Gloria Allred and Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister and former leader of Operation Rescue.

“The focus of the film is Norma. That’s what I really want people to take away from the film — who is this enigmatic person at the center of this very divisive issue,” he said. “With an issue like this there can be a temptation for different players to reduce ‘Jane Roe’ to en emblem or a trophy, and behind that is a real person with a real story. Norma was incredibly complex.”

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