GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

JANUARY 23, 1998

Evenings Out

The puzzles of Jane Roe

Film gives insight into the life of Norma McCorvey, made famous by Roe v. Wade

by Nancy Marcus

Norma McCorvey is not just any lesbian. She is a self-described "former lesbian,"a former pro-choice activist, former Jane Roe.

Perhaps the most famous anonymous person in this century's legal history, Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe, is the woman upon whose pregnancy the famous Supreme Court abortion decision Roe v. Wade was based, 25 years ago. Today, McCorvey is the woman upon whose life the Cinemax documentary Roe vs. Roe: Baptism by Fire, is based.

The story told in Roe vs. Roe is not an easy one to watch. While Hollywood recently released a purely fictional comedy (Citizen Ruth) about a pregnant woman torn between prolifers and pro-choicers, Roe vs. Roe is the sobering and real version of that story, with only a question mark for an ending.

Jane Roe, known only to most as a name in a Supreme Court case, is perhaps not a woman representative of all those whose lives were impacted by it. Unveiled as Norma McCorvey, she reveals in this documentary a life filled with unanswered questions about her sexual orientation, her religion, her views on abortion, and the meaning of her actions 25 years ago as the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade.

January 22 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the historic Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. On that day in 1973, the high court provided an answer to the long-debated question of whose decision is it to end a pregnancy. Their answer was clear: The choice to carry a pregnancy to full term or terminate it is an inalienable right that belongs solely to the woman, not church or state.

Opponents of the decision held gathered in Washington, D.C. on the anniversary of the ruling for The Annual March for Life. Like McCorvey, several lesbian, gay and bisexual groups gathered to protest the 1973 decision, among them the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL) and Feminists for Life.

Pro-choice activists were there to tell the other side of the story.

McCorvey first came out as Jane Roe, and as a lesbian, at the pro-choice March on Washington in 1989. She has recently re-emerged in the national spotlight for reasons that have dismayed pro-choice activists across the country, while making pro-lifers rejoice.

In 1994, Flip Benham, the leader of Operation Rescue, set up shop next to an abortion clinic McCorvey was volunteering for, slowly befriended her, and eventually convinced her to switch sides and become a vocal pro-life activist. At a national pro-life convention in 1995, Benham pronounced that “Jane Roe is dead."

Press releases flooded newsrooms across the country as Benham described baptizing McCorvey (in his backyard swimming pool, the documentary reveals) as a born-again Christian while she renounced and was forgiven for her former role in making abortion legal.

Roe vs. Roe illuminates the larger context of McCorvey's life, shedding some light on the story of a woman who changed history only to question the morality of her historical actions.

At first glance, McCorvey appears a walking contradiction. She went from being a prochoice heroine and staunch activist to being an equally passionate pro-life activist. She's gone

from being a lesbian in a committed partnership of 28 years to joining Operation Rescue, which has recently -added anti-gay goals to its previously abortion-focused agenda. But as McCorvey bares her soul, dropping pieces of her veil of anonymity one by one in this documentary, the contradictions are slowly explained.

McCorvey describes a life of growing up with poverty and abuse, getting married too early, and getting pregnant too young, too many times. After her first pregnancy, McCorvey started dating women. She relays a painful and life-transforming incident about her mother discovering her sexual orientation.

Upon finding out her daughter was a lesbian, her mother took her newborn baby from its crib, hid it, and replaced it with a plastic doll. When McCorvey begged for her child back, her mother told her she had taken the baby away because her daughter's "lesbian lifestyle" made her an unfit parent.

PATRICK HARBRON, HBO

Norma McCorvey, seated, joined Operation Rescue 21 years after she was the subject of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. With her is her partner Connie Gonzales, left, and filmmakers Meghan O'Hara, Shannon Malone Descarfino, and llene Findler.

By age twenty-one, McCorvey was pregnant for the third time. She wanted an abortion, but abortion was illegal and she was all too familiar with stories of women bleeding to death from illegal abortions. She signed on as the plaintiff in Roe vs. Wade, becoming a martyr as much as a heroine for women's rights. What most people don't realize is that four years passed between Norma McCorvey becoming Jane Roe and the ultimate Roe v. Wade decision coming down from the Supreme Court. As such, the decision came much too late for her to have an abortion, and she went through with her unwanted pregnancy.

Today, McCorvey expresses much bitterness about her treatment as Jane Roe. She felt neglected by her attorneys when they didn't call her at the hospital to inquire about her childbirth, and she only found out about the Supreme Court decision by reading about it in the papers. She gave the baby up for adoption at the hospital, a decision that was followed by a deep depression during which she turned to drugs, heavy drinking, and suicide attempts.

She describes feeling left out at the 1989 national pro-choice rally, at which she was unveiled as Jane Roe, seated at the main stage, but not allowed to speak. As more and more abortion doctors were murdered and violence toward clinics rose in the late '80s, she became terrified of being physically attacked or killed.

Spiritually, McCorvey was filled with doubts as well. She describes jumping from the faiths of Jehovah's Witnesses to Catholicism to Wicca to goddess-worshipping. Her jump across the line to born-again Christianity, in the context of a woman constantly scarching for answers, is not so surprising.

Her conversion to Operation Rescue is also less contradictory when seen in terms of one constant, unchanging reality apparent in this documentary-McCorvey's persistent need to be liked. It may seem a harsh criticism, but one can plausibly conclude from this documentary that the reasons for Norma McCorvey's activism with various religions and both sides of the abortion issue has stemmed more from her need for attention

than anything else. She explains her conversion to pro-life activism and born-again Christianity through a most disturbing revclation:

"I became pro-life and had Flip baptize me because of the way the pro-choice movement treated me. They never let me speak, and I had a lot to say."

Operation Rescue, in contrast, showered her with attention and "forgiveness." In describing the pro-life as well as pro-choice movement, however, McCorvey articulates frequent fears of being disliked. In regard to both camps, she seems focused on her connections with the people within each movement, and not necessarily the issues that the movements stand for.

Perhaps the most important constant in McCorvey's life is her 28-year partnership with Connie Gonzales. Norma's chivalrous, patient, butch better half is an endearing character, showing support for Norma in all her explorations while stifling her own doubts about Operation Rescue's tactics to allow Norma her own quests for happiness.

"You've got to realize,” Gonzales muses of her partner, "she's a human being with lots of emotions. I believe in people doing what makes them happy . . . nothings else matters."

But Gonzalez's own emotions are captured by the camera in this documentary despite, perhaps, her best intentions. As Norma is baptized in Benham's swimming pool, the camera scans a crowd of singing, smiling, brightly-dressed born-again Christians, pausing for a moment on Connie, sitting alone in black, silent and staring at the ground.

Although the Operation Rescue leader allows the two lovers a brief hug as Connie, in her typical chivalrous fashion, presents

Norma with congratulatory roses, his tolerance of Norma's lesbian relationship is clearly thin.

"Norma is repentant of her relationship,” he later proclaims, "and Norma is not a lesbian. She's a born-again Christian."

Although Connie describes their relationship becoming celibate to appease Norma's newfound religious order, it is not clear by the end of the documentary that Norma is so willing to give up everything, including love, to fundamentalism.

Norma herself describes saying "no" to Benham on one sole occasion; when Operation Rescue offered to buy the home she and Connie had established in order to separate the two partners. "This is my home," Norma asserts, for once strongly disagreeing with those whose approval she had desperately sought in the past.

We are told at the end of the documentary that McCorvey has left Operation Rescue. What the documentary does not reveal is why. We are told that she still identifies as pro-life, and is still living with Connie. Perhaps the ending to Norma's story is a happy one after all.

It could be that the one positive, constant element in Norma's life-her love for Connie has remained, even after all the turmoil and changes. Although Norma's choice of her lesbian love over Operation Rescue is neither denied nor revealed in the end, the love between Connie and Norma may be the true story of this special documentary. This story of a woman who may cpitomize contradiction in many ways reveals in the same woman only one indestructible, constant and happy truth: her love for another woman.

Roe vs. Roe: Baptism by Fire premieres on Cinemax January 28 at 8:00 p.m.