“For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.”  William Penn

No More Hangers is an adaptive piece from a media writing course I took a couple of years ago. Given Texas, it seemed timely.

Who was Norma McCorvey?

Upon her 2017 death, The Washington Post and The Guardian wrote about the life and legacy of Norma McCorvey.

Pregnant at 16, a run-away, sent to reform school, married, divorced, three children, three different relationships, alcoholic, once lesbian, saved.

If we wanted to judge, we could criticize choices and lifestyles, but these were the days and times of Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe. Was she a victim of circumstance, poverty, ignorance, or even manipulation? There are liabilities as well as benefits as the face of the cause.

Norma’s mother Mary described her as incorrigible and sexually precocious – she beat that out of her. Abandoned by her father, Olin, a television repairman, Norma’s beginnings were challenging.

It was not unusual for women of a certain generation to use marriage to escape the family home. Norma escaped into the arms of Elwood “Woody” McCorvey, a sheet metal worker, and at 16 tender years, she was both a wife and a mother. She bore a daughter, Melissa, raised by her grandmother.

Norma divorced and had another child she gave up for adoption, and baby Roe, her third child, was also surrendered. With her third pregnancy, termination, not adoption, was what Norma sought. In 1970, abortion was illegal in Texas unless the life of the mother was at risk. If we put ourselves in Norma’s shoes, we may empathize with her need and desperation. She was under-educated, divorced, 22 years old, and pregnant again.

A Google search shares the history of the ancient practice of abortion, dung, plant edibles, ointments, tinctures, douches and physical exertion were all used as methods and tool of termination.

Whether aware of her role or a pawn in a social-political game, without Jane Roe demanding her right to terminate her pregnancy, poor women, women of color, immigrant women would have continued to rely upon backstreet doctors, home remedies, and hangers. Those with means relied upon discrete, sanitized ways to do the same.

The Supreme Court decision did not come in time for Norma/Jane to terminate her pregnancy. Her daughter was a toddler at the time of the decision.

We can debate with science or religion when life begins. Is it a zygote, at the heartbeat, at birth? Perhaps, the more critical discussion is related to self-determination and choice.  Who determines if, when, or how a woman terminates a pregnancy – under what conditions? Can we risk losing our right to choose, choose what is best for each of us?

Can we live with making victims of rape or incest carry to term? Can we live with forcing a mother to carry a brain-dead fetus to term? Will we allow laws to regulate that very private space of making decisions about our bodies?

Is it possible to move the discussion forward to the sole consideration – you get to do what you wish with that egg? If you want to have a child, congratulations. If you decide to terminate your pregnancy, you deemed it necessary, do so without shame.

A patriarchal legal system, run by men to the benefit of men who have no vested interest in the status or condition of women will make decisions about what happens to your fertilized egg. This may sound like a feminist rebel rant, but it is about autonomy, power, and authority.

Jane Roe, a.k.a. Norma McCorvey, died at 69 of congestive heart failure. When McCorvey championed the right to choose or supported the anti-abortion movement, she brought attention to the issue and remains the symbol of the cause – a women’s right to choose.

“I wasn’t the wrong person to become Jane Roe. I wasn’t’ the right person to become Jane Roe. I was just the person who became Jane Roe of Roe v Wade. And my life story, warts and all, was a little piece of history.”

New York Times, February 18, 2017