Ms. Roe: Woman at center of battle over abortion changed sides

Norma McCorvey was a young unmarried and unemployed woman in 1969 when she became pregnant for the third time. She

tried to get an abortion but it was illegal

in Texas, where she lived, and lawyers

fighting to change the law there enlisted her as a test case.

She was willing and under the pseudonym Jane Roe she became part of the landmark lawsuit that the Supreme Court eventually took up, siding in her favor.

But McCorvey, who died last week at the age of 69, came to regret her decision and after becoming a Christian she spent the rest of her life fighting against the law she helped create.

"You're not to act as your own God," she told a reporter years later.

Abortion advocates say the existing law is meant to protect a woman's right to control what happens to her own body.

But to many others, abortion is simply murder. Norma McCorvey came to believe that.

Now with Donald Trump in the White House, anti-abortionists see the hope to appoint new members to the Supreme Court and reverse Roe v. Wade. It is sad that Norma McCorvey won't be here to witness the next round in a battle she fought so hard to turn around.

Published in Editorials on February 21, 2017 9:50 AM