Roe V. Wade Litigant Norma McCorvey To Star In Abortion-Themed Film 'Doonby'

Over four decades after first filing suit to guarantee her right to terminate her pregnancy, Norma McCorvey is set to star in a new film as an elderly woman who is firmly anti-abortion.

McCorvey, who under the pseudonym Jane Roe began what would become the historic Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, later converted to Catholicism and became a pro-life activist. She was arrested while protesting pro-choice Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotamayor's Senate hearing in 2009, and now, will take her crusade to the big screen in a new low-budget thriller called "Doonby," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

A thriller that will place McCorvey in a subplot in which she works to convince a younger woman not to have an abortion, the film's director, Peter McKenzie, says that he's not advocating for either side, but felt that having McCorvey's authenticity in the film would be a boon to the production (not to mention marketing).

"Our movie has people talking not about whether abortion should be legal or illegal," Mackenzie told The Hollywood Reporter, "but about something that we should all be able to agree on: Every abortion performed means that something is lost."

In 2005, McCorvey filed suit to overturn Roe v. Wade, and appeared on Fox News to discuss her legal motion.

Well, for a long time there, Sean, I did take on the burden and the guilt of the 45 million children that have died through legal abortion," she told Sean Hannity. "But then, you know, we have to back up and look at the women who have died from legalized abortion, also.

"I don't have to deal with it anymore. I've been saved by the Blood of the Lamb through Jesus Christ," she asserted.

With the rise of conservative state governments across the country, a new round of assaults on Roe v. Wade has begun, according to an April report.

"This is a big jump, and it says that anti-abortion legislators want to be very active on this issue and they have some momentum," Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, told HuffPost. "They used to chip away at Roe v. Wade, and now they're hacking away at it with a cleaver."

For more on the film, click over to The Hollywood Reporter.

Comments

[Leah Vollmer]

08:49 PM on 05/25/2011

Having control over your fertility is a basic human right. No woman should be forced to bear a child if she does not want to. Criminalizing abortion and hacking away at access is a politically motivated attack on women that the GOP is using to try and replace our democracy with a theocracy. Legislators are gambling with women's lives to save their jobs and fools like McCorvey are playing into their hands.

[Just My Thoughts 2011]

10:19 AM on 05/13/2011

Here is how I see it--when you take a pregnancy test, and it comes back positive, you KNOW that you are going to have a baby. It's what you do with that knowledge that makes you pro-life or pro-abortion. I read somewhere how celebrities deal with their pregnancy choices--if they don't want their baby, it's considered a fetus. And if they decide to keep on with the pregnancy they are proud to show off a "baby bump". Get it? BABY bump.

[OneWordAmerican]

11:22 PM on 05/07/2011

Not as comfortable with abortion any more---any one else----feel it is immoral

[comcbabe]

03:03 PM on 05/06/2011

I think that it is important that a woman have the CHOICE to have an abortion. This is not to say that any woman should or should not, but that she should have the option if she feels that it is what she wants or needs (like in the case of rape or ectopic pregnancy).

"Mistakes" happen, and so do intentionally bad decisions that people regret later. Either way, it is no one but the woman involved who should be able to decide what is right for her. The state/federal government should not have any influence on her ability to make such a decision.

MSC I appreciate your candid answers. I am pro-voice. Women should have the ability to voice their opinions one way or the other, and make decisions likewise. The opinions of religious entities should not be taken into account in the creation of bills/laws...that defeats the entire purpose of separation of church and state. Pro-life people are entitled to their opinions just as Pro-choice people are. But I just urge them to make their own decisions should they be put in this situation, and not impose their will upon the rest of us.

[synergie]

07:59 PM on 05/08/2011

It would be helpful then to name them what they are. Calling one side pro-Life presumes that it's opposition is somehow Pro-Death or Anti-Life.

The sides are Pro-Choice, and Anti-Choice. I personally have not met a single person who is pro-Choice and is in anyway against life.

[Just My Thoughts 2011]

01:24 PM on 05/13/2011

"I personally have not met a single person who is pro-Choice and is in anyway against life".
That makes no sense to me, respectfully saying. Terminating a pregnancy is ending a life. When that test comes back positive you know that you are pregnant with a baby. So am I to assume that the pro-choice people just don't place quite as much value on human life as the pro-life people do? What are you saying?

[MaryscottOConnor]

07:27 AM on 05/05/2011

I had an abortion at 19. Best decision I ever made. No regrets. No negative feelings, ever; no negative consequences.

In fact, knowing what occurred in my 20s, it's a damned good thing I had that abortion. I'd have been a bad mother.

I had my now 11 year-old son at the age of 31 and he is healthy, happy, tests off the charts in every academic/intellectual area... not that these are indicators of anything in particular (some people succeed and achieve and thrive in spite of bad parenting), but I can tell you that if I'd been a parent during my 20s, any child of mine would have had such incredible stress with which to deal that s/he would not have had room for academic achievement, let alone psychological health. My son has the advantage of a mother and father who wanted him and were prepared to parent.

And a mother who is sober and has been his entire life.

[DannyGee]

10:50 AM on 05/05/2011

Hard to believe you have no regrets. You never thought about what your grown child would be doing today if you had not aborted it?

[saskatoonie]

03:27 PM on 05/05/2011

Please accept that her feelings may not be your own. This argument is about choice!

[MaryscottOConnor]

04:36 PM on 05/05/2011

You can believe it, or not. No regrets. That isn't saying that I haven't mused, on rare occasions, what that imaginary child might have grown up to be. But then I recall, vividly, what *I* was like... and my musings turn to how messed up that child would've been had I been forced to carry it to term at an age when I was not just unprepared, but wholly incompetent.

So my occasional imaginings always turn to utter gratitude that I didn't have to go through with an unwanted pregnancy and foist myself upon an innocent child. Instead, there never was one, until I was ready.

Sorry, I don't believe a 7 week old embryo is an "innocent child." It's a ludicrous concept to me. MY child is an innocent child -- the one who actually came into being. The embryo I aborted was a potential child that ceased being even that when I was able to reverse an unfortunate series of events. And before you even THINK about judging that, try imagining a gruesome series of events leading up to that pregnancy.

Incidentally... I had to have another one, 5 years later... but that was an ectopic pregnancy and would have, you know, killed me, while never ever being viable itself. Not that such minor details matter to most of the crazies out there. They'd have made even THAT sane procedure illegal, and happily had me die. Because, you know, they're so PRO-LIFE.

[OneWordAmerican]

11:22 PM on 05/07/2011

was it morally justified? even if it was right?

[synergie]

08:01 PM on 05/08/2011

From her statements, YES. Not all women are qualified to be parents at all times, and she was smart enough to realize that.

[MaryscottOConnor]

07:19 AM on 05/05/2011

Oh, dear god.

[inapickle]

01:20 AM on 05/05/2011

The moderation on this thread is out of hand. There's about 1 comment coming through every 5 to 10 minutes!

[jjgg5]

01:17 AM on 05/05/2011

How much is she being paid?

[saskatoonie]

01:04 AM on 05/05/2011

For all those here who are fervently anti-abortion please put all your pent up energy into something such as pregnancy prevention, or along that line, foster some children that are already here that need care. You do realize you look ridiculous in your stance against abortion when there are so many unwanted children already in this life that need love and attention!

[raker]

10:58 PM on 05/04/2011

And Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas despises affirmative action. After they get theirs, everybody else can drop dead. That's the essence of conservatism.

[anthonybrown]

03:44 PM on 05/05/2011

And after you were safely nurtured for nine months, everyone else can get killed by big people with scrapers. "That's the essence of conservatism."

[synergie]

08:02 PM on 05/08/2011

What a ridiculous statement.

[Jazz88105]

10:45 PM on 05/04/2011

Norma just because you have come to regret your decision does not mean we should all have to return to a time of back alley abortions when more than 10,000 women died yearly from the procedures. As woman who has had an abortion I want the procedure to remain safe and legal and a decision made between a woman, her significant other and her doctor. I do not want you or my government involved with my medical decisions.

[inapickle]

11:49 PM on 05/04/2011

Norma did have the child which the case was based on (the wheels of justice move slowly) and gave her up for adoption.
This was her third child. The first was being raised by her mother, the second was also put up for adoption. Before she contacted lawyers and began the Roe v. Wade case, she had falsely claimed to have been raped in an attempt to get a legal abortion and had unsucessfully sought out an illegal abortion.
Regardless of her feelings now, she is a fairly perfect example of why we should have choice. This was the third child that she was unable or unwilling to care for, she had falsely claimed a crime had been committed and could have dragged an innocent person into her crisis, and she had sought out dangerous back alley procedures.
Her mental state then and now might very well have been far better had she had more control over her life and body. But she seems to forget that now.

[lrlrlr]

07:57 AM on 05/05/2011

She's been manipulated by the pro-lifers. With them, she suddenly finds herself being a winner.

[consandy]

10:35 PM on 05/04/2011

Do as I say, not as I do.

[MaryscottOConnor]

07:21 AM on 05/05/2011

DO as I say, not as I WOULD have done if I'd had the choice I didn't have, but would now like to deny you.

[sharooni]

10:32 PM on 05/04/2011

Gettin' notoriety any way she can. Wonder who's signing her singing checks?

[IndyGuy]

10:13 PM on 05/04/2011

I was stationed in the Philippines during the late 80's. Around the base there were a ton of bars and prostitution was rampant. The girl I was dating at the time had a friend who worked at one of the bars. She became pregnant and decided to have an illegal abortion (it is illegal in the Philippines, just like divorce). My girlfriend went with her for support but unfortunately she died during the procedure. We attended the wake and funeral. I vividly remember seeing this young 19 year old girl lying in her casket. I had never seen anything like that before and it shook me to the core! I had been anti-abortion but this horrible situation made me change my mind.

I have dated women who have had abortions and hearing their stories is very painful. The thing I learned through all of this is that it is in fact a woman's decision what to do with her body, nobody else! I can understand Ms.Mccorvey's stance as a devout Catholic, but what she wants the government to do is to tell all women what they can do with their bodies. That part I just don't understand.

[anthonybrown]

03:43 PM on 05/05/2011

The next thing you know, the government will be telling women they can't put crack in their bodies.

Get your laws off my crack pipe!

[synergie]

08:04 PM on 05/08/2011

What a repugnant comment.

[JenniferEccles]

10:07 PM on 05/04/2011

I couldn't care less what McCorvey does and nobody else should care either.