BuddhistCatholicContemplativeEvangelicalGeneral ChristianHinduJewishLatter-day SaintMuslimNew VisionsProgressive Christian
Beliefs
- Buddhist
- Catholic
- Contemplative
- Evangelical
- General Christian
- Hindu
- Jewish
- Latter-day Saint
- More Voices
- Muslim
- New Visions
- Pagan
- Progressive Christian
Topics
- Religion News
- Food and Religion
- Sports and Religion
- Religious Art
- Religious Music and Entertainment
- Religious Events
- History and Religion
- Style and Religion
- Politics and Religion
- Women in Religion
- Recreation Outdoors and Religion
- Business Finance and Religion
- Careers Workplace and Religion
- Education and Religion
- Family Parenting and Religion
- Health Fitness and Religion
- Home and Religion
- Relationships and Religion
- Technology and Religion
- Travel and Religion
Columnists
- Buddhist Columnists
- Business Finance and Religion Columnists
- Careers Workplace and Religion Columnists
- Catholic Columnists
- Contemplative Columnists
- Education and Religion Columnists
- Evangelists Columnists
- Family Parenting and Religion Columnists
- General Christian Columnists
- Health Fitness and Religion Columnists
- Hindu Columnists
- History and Religion Columnists
- Home and Religion Columnists
- Jewish Columnists
- More Voices Columnists
- Latter Day Columnists
- Muslim Columnists
- New Visions Columnists
- Nonreligious Columnists
- Pagan Columnists
- Politics and Religion Columnists
- Progressive Columnists
- Recreation Outdoors and Religion Columnists
- Relationships and Religion Columnists
- Religion News Columnists
- Religious Art Columnists
- Religious Events Columnists
- Religious Music and Entertainment Columnists
- Sports and Religion Columnists
- Style and Religion Columnists
- Technology and Religion Columnists
- Travel and Religion Columnists
- Women in Religion Columnists
Resource Library
- 2026 Calendar
- Library of World Religions
- The 100 Most Holy Places on Earth
- Patheos Answers
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Faith Leaders Database
- Anglican Episcopalian
- Bahai
- Baptist
- Buddhism
- Christianity
- Confucianism
- Eastern Orthodoxy
- Hinduism
- Holiness and Pentecostal
- ISKCON
- Islam
- Judaism
- Lutheran
- Methodist
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- New Age
- Paganism
- Presbytarian and Reformed
- Protestantism
- Religion Behind the Scenes
- Roman Catholic
- Scientology
- Shia Islam
- Sikhism
- Sufism
- Sunni Islam
- Taoism
- Zen
- See all religions
Research Tools
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support
- Trending:
- Forgiveness
- |
- Marriage
- |
- Consciousness
- |
- Death Penalty
- |
- Election
- |
- Halloween
- Home
- Catholic
- Politics and Religion
- Abortion Kills a Baby. McCorvey’s Confession and User Preachers Don’t Change That.
Abortion Kills a Baby. McCorvey’s Confession and User Preachers Don’t Change That.
Last updated on: May 26, 2020 at 2:40 pm by Rebecca Hamilton
Abortion Kills a Baby. McCorvey’s Confession and User Preachers Don’t Change That. 2020-05-26T14:40:35-06:00 Rebecca Hamilton
Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.
Norma McCorvey, during her pro choice years. Source: Wikimedia Commons by Lorie Shauli https://www.flickr.com/people/number7cloud/?rb=1
FX is airing a documentary called AKA Roe. In this documentary, Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” in Roe v Wade, gives what she terms her “deathbed confession.”
Like just about everything else she did in her life, Norma McCorvey’s deathbed confession is a doozy.
You may remember that Ms McCorvey originally told Sarah Weddington, one of the attorneys who took Roe v Wade to the Supreme Court, that she was pregnant as a result of rape. McCorvey later recanted that story, announcing that she had lied to Ms Weddington about being raped.
This lie had nothing to do with the decision that overturned abortion laws in America. The court did not base its decision on McCorvey’s situation. But the lie did begin her very public career of making claims and later recanting them.
For years, McCorvey was a pro choice advocate. Then, in another switcheroo, she announced that she was now a born-again Christian and that she was opposed to legal abortion.
Now, we have the scandalous documentary, AKA Roe, in which she recants yet again. Her deathbed confession is that she was lying when she said she opposed legal abortion and that she did it for the money she was paid by the pro life movement. She further states that her speeches on behalf of the unborn were written for her; that she was told what to say by the same pro life preachers who paid her to say it.
Once again Norma McCorvey has managed to make herself the center of attention, this time from the grave. She also achieves one more highly-public, attention-grabbing switch in her lifelong pattern of telling a story that elicits sympathy and support and then later announcing that she was lying all along.
Pro life people are all in a dither over this. Prominent pro life clergy are scurrying around, trying to save their reputations. “She was lying when she said she lied!” they announce. Their denials and half-baked defenses are being reprinted and spiffed up to sound more convincing by various pro life venues. Pro life loyalists are forwarding these stories on their Facebook pages, Twitter and Reddit feeds.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
AKA Roe shows receipts and bank records demonstrating that McCorvey was paid upwards of $450,000 over the years for her pro life work. It also aired damning interviews with two of the pro life preachers who “handled” McCorvey in her public appearances, and who preached at her funeral.
McCorvey’s latest flip-flop-flip sounds like it’s basically true. She was targeted by pro life preachers for conversion. They scripted her speeches denouncing legal abortion. She was paid to make those speeches. Not only that, but she denounced her sexual orientation at their request, despite the fact that she was part of a long-term, stable, lesbian relationship with the woman who she says in the documentary was the love of her life.
What she felt down in her heart during her early conversion, I’m not sure even she could say. But I, for one, do not think she was abused by the pro life movement, or at least I don’t think that she was abused by them any more than they were abused by her.
The documentary sounds as if Ms McCorvey converted to the pro life movement because they gave her more attention and paid her better than the pro choice people did. Then, when she was in failing health and no longer useful, they dumped her. The pro life preachers who converted her may have preached her funeral, but the film offers no evidence that they visited McCorvey in the nursing home.
If she was angry about this, she certainly got her revenge by cooperating in the making of this documentary.
This is it not to say that pro life religious leaders did not manipulate and use Norma McCorvey. Based on my experience, high profile preachers who get into political power games are almost always phony-baloney spiritual abusers and hucksters. They are some of the greasiest greasers I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. Of course they went after Norma McCorvey.
I think Norma McCorvey used the pro life movement to get attention and money. I think, based on the documentary, that the two preachers who gave interviews used her to build their egos and fill the coffers of their “ministries.” They paid her to put on a really good show, and her “testimony” helped them publicize their minstries and keep the donations flowing in.
Norma McCorvey’s conversion did not affect the legal status of abortion. Paying high-profile converts to give gut-wrenching speeches about the horrors of legal abortion does nothing to advance the cause of life. What it does is feed the egos of the preachers who “converted” them and introduce a level of dishonesty and satanic evil into the movement.
There is a titillating, prurient, quality to the tales these people tell. Some of their stories are close to a type of horror porn. I don’t have much respect for high profile converts who get paid to share their witness. I also don’t think too highly of their political preacher handlers.
I have never and I will never take a dime for speaking for the unborn. That’s blood money. Pro life “converts” who make a good living telling their story are trading on the lives of the people they helped kill.
I’ve never yet seen one of these “conversion story for hire” converts who didn’t end up pandering to the nutty faction in our movement.
No matter how sincere they might have been when they began, over time, their “witness” starts sounding canned and rehearsed. Then, the next thing you know, they’re coloring outside the lines of truth and dressing things up with ever more incredible horror stories. After that, they begin to follow down the path of looney nonsense that is on the fringe of any political movement, joining up with right wing crazies in their craziness.
Norma McCorvey was an extreme example. The truth according to her is that she never really converted. Or maybe she did convert, but then she lost her conversion in the circus that followed.
She was a woman who had a terrible childhood and who craved attention and respect. She also preferred giving speeches to big crowds for lots of money to working for pennies as a cleaning lady. Giving her “witness” at pro life rallies for large checks fed all these needs in one swoop.
The preachers who “converted” her grooved all over the ego rush of landing such a big fish. They paid her to say what they wanted and, they got off on it and made a lot more money that McCorvey did from it.
They weren’t shepherds. They were just another version of what she’d known all her growing up. They were abusers.
None of this says much of anything about the question of abortion. Abortion is wrong because it kills a child. There is no need for horror stories or high profile converts or any of the other window dressing the movement loves so much. Those things distract from the truth of the matter, which stands on its own.
I hope that Norma McCorvey reconciled with God before her end. I hope the preachers who used her do the same thing, because they need it just as much as she ever did.
Previous Post

May 25, 2020
Abortion is Wrong . Rape is Wrong for the Same Reasons.
Next Post

June 1, 2020 What About Those Galileans?
Browse Our Archives
Select a Category 10 Commandments 2012 Election 2016 Election 2020 Election 2022 Election 2024 Election Abortion Addiction Adult Day Care Advent Africa AI Alcoholism Alex Pretti Renee Good America American Citizenship American Fascism Announcement Anti Semitism Anti-Semitism Apologetics Archbishop Coakley Argentina Armenian Genocide Ash Wednesday Ballot Box Salvation Biden Big Beautiful Bill Bishop Black Mass Blasphemy Boko Haram Book Review Brainwashing Breast Cancer Bribery Calling Evil Good calling good evil Cancer Canonize Caregiving Catholic Catholic Vote Cause for Sainthood Chaos child abuse Child Labor Child Rearing Child Sacrifice Christian Bashers Christian Leadership Christian Persecution Christian Solidarity Christianity Christmas clergy Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal Climate Coakley Common Good Communion Communism Computers concentration camps Conclave Confession Consecration to Our Lady Conversion Coptic Christians Coronavirus Corporatism Corruption COVID Crisis Pregnancy Centers Culture D Day Death Death Penalty Dementia Democracy Designer Baby Destruction of the Family Dictator Dignity of Work Divine Mercy Novena Divine Mercy Sunday Divorce Doubt Drug Addiction easter Ebola Economics Education Egg Harvesting El Salvador Elderly Epiphany Epstein eternal life Eternal Life Eucharist Eugenics Euthanizing Children Euthansia evangelization Excommunicate Biden Extraterrestrial Life Failed Clergy Faith False Gods Family Fascism Fatherhood Feast of the Assumption First Amendment Flood the Zone Following Christ forced conversion Forgiveness Fortnight4Freedom fourth amendment Fr James Altman Fr Stanley Rother free press Freedom Freedom of Conscience freedom of religion Freedom of Speech Freedom of Worship vs Religious Freedom Geek Stuff Gender Theory Genocide God the Father Good Friday Gossip GQP Greenland Grief Gun Control Gun Violence Hate Blogs Health Health Care Heart Attack Heaven Hell Herod HHS Mandate History of the Crusades Holy Father Holy Father' Holy Father's Tweets Holy Matrimony Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Holy Thursday Holy Week Home Homeschooling homosexual Hospice Human Dignity Human Rights human trafficking Humor ICE Idolatry Immaculate Conception Immigration Incest Infertility Inspiration Iran War ISIS Islam Islamic Brotherhood Israel JD Vance Jesus Jobs Jordan Judas Judicial and Legislative Murder Judicial Murder July 4 Just War Justice Kavanaugh Ketanji Jackson Brown Laity Latin Mass Leadership Lent Less of Me Lying Lying for Trump Mad King MAGA Magnifica humanitas Mama Marriage Marriage Protection Amendment Martyr Media Bias Medicaid Men and Abortion Mercy Military Dictatorship Misogyny Motherhood Movie Review Murder Music National Catholic Register Nazi Clergy Neo Nazis New Category New Evangelism New Evangelization News Headlines Nigeria No Kings Novena for the Persecuted Church Nuns Obama Oklahoma Oscar Romero Our Lady Our National Embarrassment Pakistan Palm Sunday Papal Conclave Papal G8 Pedophile piano political priests Political Whore Clergy Politics Polygamy Pope Francis Pope Francis Visit United States Pope Leo XIV Pope's Prayer Intentions Pornography Post Christian West Poverty Prayer Prayers for the Persecuted Church Pro Life Prophecy Prostitution Purgatory Putin Quack Medicine Racism Rape Religious Freedom Renee Good Republican Republican priests Rerum Novarum Retirement Risen Lord Roe v Wade Rosary Sacrament Sacred Heart Sacrilege Saints Salvation Same Sex Marriage Sanctity of Human Life Satan Save Our Democracy scandal Scripture Shroud of Turin Sisters Slavery Social Justice Social Security Solidarity Cross St Michael the Archangel stations of the cross Stop Late Term Abortion Stroke Suicide Supreme Court Surrogacy Surveillance State Synod Syria Taliban Tariffs Taxes Technology Thanksgiving The Ascension The Cross The Locust Class The Political Heresy The Resurrection The Tomb The Transfiguration The Trinity The War on Girls Tornado Trauma Trump Trump Coup Trump Destroying America Trump's Coup Trump's War on the Rule of Law Trumpism Ukraine Uncategorized USAID USCCB Vatican Vatican Reform Violence Against Women Violence in America Vocation Voting Rights Wages Walk for Life War Weight Loss White House Why Aren't You a Feminist Too? Woke Women Leaders Women's Rights Worker's Rights World Hunger World War I World War III World Youth Day Worship Writing Year of Faith
Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 October 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 January 2012
Follow Us!
TAKE THE
Religious Wisdom Quiz
What is the Christian teaching about showing hospitality?
Select your answer to see how you score.
Welcome strangers Avoid people Close your door Host only friends
Related posts from Public Catholic
MA Enacts Law Allowing Abortion at any Stage...
Pope Leo's Prayer Intention for Sept: For the...
Pope Leo Addressed America on July 4. Watch...
Scientists Edit Genes in Human Embryos. What it...
TRENDING AT PATHEOS Catholic
Emotion in Early Christianity by Andrew Crislip
Andrew Crislip’s Emotion in Early Christianity examines an often overlooked dimension of...
16 Spiritual Touchstones for a More Grounded Life
After decades of spiritual study, here are 16 principles I try...
Catholic Evangelization: Sharing Your Faith Every Day
Welcome back to the Graceful Awakening mini-series called, “From Faith to Mission.” ...
The Pillar of the Boatmen: the Ancient Monument...
The Pillar of the Boatmen is a Romano-Gaulish sculpture that dates from...
In one sense walking into Westminster Abbey is like walking down the...
'Super Scam Me' Exposes AI Jon Bon Jovi...
Leslie Pickett believed she was in a relationship with Jon Bon Jovi....
view all Catholic blogs
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support
- About Us
- 2026 Calendar
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Library of World Religions
- Faith In Media Tracker
- Advertise With Us
- Write for Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
- Do Not Sell My Data
- Contact Us
- Radiant Digital
- Manage Newsletter Subscriptions
- Unsubscribe From Notifications
- Sitemap
Copyright 2008-2026, Patheos. All rights reserved.
Subscription Support Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In











