Jane Roe, whose victory in the Roe v. Wade lawsuit affirmed the . The next day, flowers arrived with a note. Every time, she declined. Shelly Thornton lives in Troy, MI; previous cities include Clinton Township MI and Sterling Heights MI. Their dinner was not yet ready, and the three women crossed the street to a playground. The comments below have not been moderated. Being described as pro-life in the Enquirer, she said, felt like being associated with a bunch of religious fanatics going around and doing protests.. She and Doug had made plans to marry, and Shelley was due to deliver two months after the wedding date. Twenty-six states are likely to ban it if Roe v. Wade is formally overturned, essentially outlawing abortion in more than half of the country. Oklahoma, for example, passed several bills in recent weeks, including one that goes into effect this summer making it a felony to perform an abortion. It's better to have a little sugar than any sweetener at all, says Gut Health Guru Dr Megan Rossi. Shelley Lynn Thornton, 51, the daughter of Norma McCorvey (below) and the woman whose conception led to the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, has revealed herself publicly for the first time as the "Roe baby." You had to know cops. Jonah and his two brothers sometimes helped. Tracing leads, I found my way to her in early 2011. The motion moved through the courts until it was ultimately denied by the Supreme Court in 2005. In 2005, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by McCorvey to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Shelley Lynn Thornton, 51, has come forward to reveal that she is the youngest daughter of McCorvey - the woman known as Jane Roe Thornton was the only child of her adopted parents Ruth Schmidt. She admitted before she died that she made the change in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thornton began "shaking all over and crying" when learning the difficult truth that she was the child of the plaintiff in the famous case. 'It became apparent to me really quickly that the only reason why she wanted to reach out to me and find me was because she wanted to use me for publicity. McCorvey, who revealed her identity shortly after the landmark case, died at 69 in 2017 after a complicated public life. EXCLUSIVE Revealed: Bungling road chiefs put drivers at greater risk on smart motorways because orange paint Trendy hard floors could be to blame for your foot pain (and there is a simple way to stop it), Scientists discover what happens seconds after you die - activity in the brain and heart RAMPS UP, Scientists can now read your MIND: AI turns people's thoughts into text in real-time. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Thornton has since met her two half sisters, but she did not reunite with McCorvey before her death. She became instead, with the help of McCluskey, the only child of a woman in Dallas named Ruth Schmidt and her eventual husband, Billy Thornton. [3], In 2021, Thornton's identity as the "Roe baby" was released in Joshua Prager's book, The Family Roe: An American Story. 'And that's really hard to grasp when you're in that kind of a situation and you're just kind of like learning all of this stuff,' she said. They took in their differences: the chins, for instancerounded, receded, and cleft, hinting at different fathers. Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v.. The next year, she had a boyfriend. She gave custody of her daughter to her mother. Nine years her senior, he was courteous and loved cars. 'I want everyone to understand that this is something I've chosen to do.'. Thornton said prior to learning who her mother was, she had not really considered abortion, saying it was a non-thing in her adopted family. Thereafter, slowly, she became an activistworking at first with pro-choice groups and then, after becoming a born-again Christian in 1995, with pro-life groups. Shelley Lynn Thornton, the woman whose very conception sparked one of the Supreme Court's most significant legal rulings in U.S. history, is telling her story and making it clear she won't . Ruth in particular, Shelley would recall, felt it was important that she know she had been chosen. But even the chosen wonder about their roots. Hanft would remember it differently, that Shelley had told her she was pro-life., Hanft and Fitz revealed at the restaurant that they were working for the Enquirer. The reporters told her who her biological motherwas then asked her if she was 'pro life or pro choice' whichshe said she didn't understand. ', Shelley Thorton was adopted as a baby and raised by Ruth and Billy Thornton, a married couple. The questionpro-life or pro-choice?hung in the air. In March 2013, Shelley flew to Texas to meet her half sistersfirst Jennifer, in the city of Elgin, and then, together with Jennifer, their big sister, Melissa, at her home in Katy. The child was not identified but was said to be pro-life and living in Washington State. Doug asked her to give up her career and stay at home. She told Shelley that shed given her up because, Shelley recalled, I knew I couldnt take care of you. She also told Shelley that she had wondered about her always. Shelley listened to Normas words and her smokers voice. The justices are expected to take up a case concerning a similar Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a direct challenge to the 1973 decision. The third child was the one whose conception led to Roe. I think she was taken advantage of by both sides, but I think she also took advantage of both sides, Thornton told ABC News. His great-grandfather Reginald and his grandfather Reginald and his father, Reginald, had all gone to Harvard and become eminent doctors. Ruth quickly learned that she could not conceive. A short time later, she underwent another religious conversion and became a Roman Catholic and left Operation Rescue. Of course, the child had a real name too. Wow! Melissa Mills is one of them (pictured in 2021). The three met at a pizza parlor when Norma was eight weeks pregnant. Now 51, she revealed her identity for the first time in The Atlantic. That same year, Ruth met Billy, the brother of another wife on the base. The two told ABC they had an instant bond. Now they talk nearly every day. She told ABC News through her spokesperson, "Too many times has a woman's choice, voice, and individual freedom been decided for her by others. Abortion has become a hotly contested issue over the past year after many states passed strict abortion laws. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, GOP must confront abortion issue head-on to win swing voters in 2024: RNC chair, For a defender of democracy, Joe Biden sure undermines it a LOT, Samuel Alito claims he has pretty good idea who leaked Dobbs draft, says it made justices targets of assassination, Clueless Kathy Hochuls chaotic governance leaves New York to bleed. ', McCorvey is pictured in 1998. Her conception, in 1969, led to the lawsuit that ultimately produced, Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, All of Those Hysterical Women Were Right, Another Extremist Law That Americans Have to Live With, puts enforcement in the hands of private citizens, is scheduled to take up the question of abortion in its upcoming term, Norma was intubated and dying in a Texas hospital. She is 51. Schmidt ended the meeting and the pair left. Shelley Lynn Thorton is the biological child of Jane Roe from the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade SCOTUS case. From Shelleys perspective, it was clear that if she, the Roe baby, could be said to represent anything, it was not the sanctity of life but the difficulty of being born unwanted. Hunter Biden claims he's paid Lunden Roberts $750k - $20,000 a month - in child MEGHAN MCCAIN: The Biden Family is a national disgrace! '", She said she'd grown up with the idea that 'if a familymember had a baby, they couldn't take care of it, then somebodyelse in the family took it and took care of it.'. The pioneering heart operation that only takes an hour and doesn't leave a scar is performed on first Briton. Being that I am bound to the center of Roe v. Wade, I have a unique perspective on this matter specifically." I had nothing to do with it. Join Facebook to connect with Shelly Lynn and others you may know. Ruth and Billy didnt hide from Shelley the fact that she had been adopted. View the profiles of people named Shelly Lynn. She was born in June of 1970, a few months after Norma McCorvey filed Roe and a few years before the case was decided. [2] Thornton also learned about her two older half-sisters from McCorvey, Melissa and Jennifer. She simply continued on. 'I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. Her first child was the only one of her three children who was a part of her mother's life. Enquirer stating that we have no intensions of [exploiting] you or your family. According to detailed notes taken by Ruth on conversations with her lawyer, who was in contact with various parties, Norma even denied giving consent to the Enquirer to search for her child. The publication had thendescribed her as pro-life because she had told the journalist 'she couldn't see herself having an abortion. The story quoted Hanft. Four more states are considered likely to quickly pass bans now that Roe is overturned. Two days earlier, Shelley had been a typical teenager on the brink of another summer. Her first child was the only one of her three children who was a part of her mother's life. Secrets and lies are, like, the two worst things in the whole world, she said. Shelley Lynn Thornton, now 51, is the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey and spoke on the record for the first time in 2021. Genealogy for Shelley Lynn Thornton (McCorvey) family tree on Geni, with over 245 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. Shelley felt a rush of joy: The woman who had let her go now wanted to know her. Wow! Shelley had replied, she recalled, that she hoped Norma and Connie would be discreet in front of her son: How am I going to explain to a 3-year-old that not only is this person your grandmother, but she is kissing another woman? Norma yelled at her, and then said that Shelley should thank her. She decided to have the child, but didn't understand why the abortion decision should be "a government concern. By 1989when Norma went public with her hope to find her daughterHanft had found more than 600 adoptees and misidentified none. But she did an about-face and later spoke out on behalf of anti-abortion campaignersafter befriending The Rev. Though the Supreme Court ultimately decided three years after she filed her lawsuit that all women should have access to legal abortions, McCorvey had already been forced to carry her pregnancy to term, had given birth to Thornton and had let another family adopt her newborn. 'Nazi gold' turns out to be a WW2 bullet and a pair of muddy boots: Hunt for lost loot hidden in Dutch 'I'm no deadbeat dad!' The landmark ruling saw abortions decriminalized in 46 states, but under certain specific conditions which individual states could decide on. She especially welcomed the prospect of coming together with her half sisters. The ruling has been contested with ever-increasing intensity, dividing and reshaping American politics. Shelley had long considered abortion wrong, but her connection to Roe had led her to reexamine the issue. Only the following January did it offer its historic seven-to-two decision - overturning the Texas laws and setting a legal precedent that has had ramifications in all 50 states. She charged clients $1,500 for a typical search, twice that if there was little information to go on. 'We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,' he continues in the document, titled 'Opinion of the Court. And they said, Well, she is the woman who they used to do the Roe versus Wade case. Her plan for a Roseanne-style reunion was coming apart. The first, 'I Am Roe' in 1994, included abortion-rights sentiments along with details of her early life of dysfunctional parents, reform school, petty crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, an abusive husband, an attempted suicide and lesbianism. (A woman had recently accused Norma of shortchanging her in a marijuana sale.) Shelley was the single mother's third pregnancy. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. That was fine by her. Republicans could try to enact a nationwide abortion ban, while Democrats could also seek to protect abortion rights at the national level. But it cautioned her again that cooperation was the safest option. But she got through ninth grade, shedding her Texas accent and making friends at Highline High. I want everyone to understand, she later explained, that this is something Ive chosen to do.. Back home, Shelley wondered if talking to Norma might ease the situation or even make the tabloid go away. She bore three children, each of them placed for adoption. Or is it not cool? And then it was too late. Unfortunately, she said, your birth mother is Jane Roe., That name Shelley recognized. However, abortion rights have been under threat in recent months as Republican-led states move to tighten rules - with some seeking to ban all abortions after six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant - andhave passed various abortion restrictions in defiance of the Roe precedent in recent years. Two years after the Enquirer article and as an unmarried 20-year-old, Thornton discovered she was pregnant. Mills was with McCorvey when she died. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. If the court decides in favor of the state, Roe v. Wade will effectively be overturned. McCorvey is pictured in July 2011. I was just a pawn, and I wasn't going to let her do it. The sisters hugged at Melissas front door. The family moved, and then moved again and again. As the kids grew up, and began to resemble her and Doug in so many ways, Shelley found herself ever more mindful of whom she herself sometimes resembledmindful of where, perhaps, her anxiety and sadness and temper came from. A decade later, in 1981, Norma briefly volunteered for the National Organization for Women in Dallas. Thanks for contacting us. She. Hanft often relied on information not legally available: Social Security numbers, birth certificates. We've received your submission. I did not call Shelley. Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, never had the abortion she was seeking. Fans don't believe North West, nine, organized lavish pre-Met Gala gift for mom Kim Kardashian: 'What 9 year Melting the ice queen's heart! Someone! . Thornton's reaction was "What! She said she couldnt afford to travel to one of the handful of states where it would have been legal. They sat down on a couch, none of their feet quite touching the floor. Thornton spent the first 19 years of her life without knowing McCorvey was her birth mother. We left the restaurant saying, We dont want any part of this, Shelley told me. She was ambivalent about adoption, too. But then life changed. Well ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. When the Enquirer had tracked her down, Thornton's adoptive mom, Schmidt, told the journalist 'we don't believe in abortion,' she said. Shelley Lynn Thornton, 51, the woman whose conception led to the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, has revealed herself publicly for the first time as the "Roe baby.". The National Right to Life Committee seized upon the story. Thornton, who is now a mother of three living in Arizona, nearly met McCorvey in person in 1994 before an angry phone conversation derailed the meeting. Norma knew her first child, Melissa. HuffPost's top politics stories, straight to your inbox. When she found herself with an unplanned pregnancy in 1991, Thornton began to think more deeply about the issue. At the same time, she feared embracing her birth mother; it might be better, she recalled, to tuck her away as background noise., Norma, too, was upset. Mills was with McCorvey when she died. Heres my chance at finding out who my birth mother was, she said, and I wasnt even going to be able to have control over it because I was being thrown into the Enquirer.. And she began working to connect other women with the children they had relinquished. Fitz said he was writing a similar story about Norma and Shelley. Some 20 years had passed since Norma had conceived her third child, yet she had begun searching for that child only a few weeks after retaining a prominent lawyer. She also confessed to lying when she said the pregnancy was the result of rape. Her identity was not publicly known until 2021. At three days old, she was adopted by then-engaged Texas residents, Ruth Schmidt and Billy Thornton. Having idly mused as a girl that her birth mother was a beautiful actor, she now knew that her birth mother was synonymous with abortion. She never did anything in her life to get that privilege back. There isn't much info so far, but apparently more The news that Norma was seeking her child had angered some in the pro-life camp. Ruth interjected, We dont believe in abortion. Hanft turned to Shelley. She listened as Hanft began to tell what she knew of her birth mother: that she lived in Texas, that she was in touch with the eldest of her three daughters, and that her name was Norma McCorvey. But it left a deep mark on Shelley. 'She didn't deserve to meet me,' Thornton said. Hanft paid them to scan microfiche birth records for the asterisks that might denote an adoption. The child whose conception was the genesis of the lawsuit that became Roe v. Wade is now a 51-year-old woman ready to tell her story. As a teenager, she said her biggest concerns were "shoes and boys." She had no reason to think much beyond herself, until reporters at the National Enquirer revealed her birth identity to her. Lavin told Shelley that she would do nothing without her consent. And as I discovered while writing a book about Roe, the childs identity had been known to just one personan attorney in Dallas named Henry McCluskey. Duchess of Buccleuch dies aged 68 after 'short illness' following operation, her family reveal - just days Charles' Gladiator! In 1988, Shelley graduated from Highline High and enrolled in secretarial school. The state's law banning it after six weeks has already been allowed to go into effect by the Supreme Court due to its unusual civil enforcement structure. Their lives resist the tidy narratives told on both sides of the abortion divide. She is their only child. Shelley asked why. I'm keeping a secret, but I hate it,' she said, in an adapted excerpt from Prager's new book'The Family Roe: An American Story', published in The Atlantic. She was Jane Roe. Shelley was afraid to answer. I want her to know, the Enquirer quoted Norma as saying, Ill never force myself upon her. However, she performed an unlikely U-turn in 1995, becoming a born-again Christian and began traveling the country speaking out against the procedure. She was 20. Perhaps because the Roe baby went unnamed, the Enquirer story got little traction, picked up only by a few Gannett papers and The Washington Times. Facebook gives people the power to. McCorvey had given up two baby daughters already and did not want to have a third child. Shelley Lynn Thornton, 51, has come forward to reveal that she is the youngest daughter of McCorvey - the woman known as Jane Roe. When the Roe case was decided, in 1973, the adoptive parents were oblivious of its connection to their daughter, now 2 and a half, a toddler partial to spaghetti and pork chops and Cheez Whiz casserole. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. However, at her request, her name was kept out of the ensuing article, which ran in 1989. McCorvey began searching for Thornton in 1989, appearing on the "TODAY" show expressing her hope to find her third child. EXCLUSIVE: High-ranking Met Police officer on 100,000-a-year who was found to be a regular user of Can the Keto diet help treat mental illness? Oh my God! Shelley Lynn Thornton, photographed in Tucson this summer. Roe was 'Jane Roe,' a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, a single mother pregnant for the third time, who wanted an abortion. The Supreme Court, now dominated by conservative justices, has also agreed to hear a case out of Mississippi concerning pre-viability bans on abortion. Thorntons birth mother was the plaintiff in that case who wanted to legally end her pregnancy in Texas. The Courts decision alluded only obliquely to the existence of Normas baby: In his majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun noted that a pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate process is complete. The pro-life community saw the unknown child as the living incarnation of its argument against abortion. Shelley Lynn Thornton is the baby of Roe vs. Wade plaintiff Norma McCorvey. 'She wasn't sorry, about giving me away or anything,' she said. This page is not available in other languages. But several months after Roe was decided, in a tragedy unrelated to the case, McCluskey was murdered. Ruth spoke up: She wanted proof. Her second child, Jennifer, had been adopted by a couple in Dallas. Shelley Lynn Thornton, the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey -- the woman behind the Roe v. Wade abortion case -- issued a statement to ABC News on Monday following the Supreme Court's . In the interview, McCorvey refered to herself as 'the Big Fish' in the eyes of evangelical leaders who were eager to have her publicly switch sides and take up their cause. Ruth and Billy ran off, settling in the Dallas area. Shelley Lynn Thornton, now 51, revealed herself as the so-called Roe baby in The Atlantic, which published an excerpt from an upcoming book about her, her birth mother, her half-sisters and the ways their lives unfolded after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973. I was just a pawn, and I wasnt going to let her do it, she said.