In Roe v. Wade, “Roe” was Norma McCorvey, a 22-year-old Texas woman who sued under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” in 1969 after she could not obtain a legal abortion, and “Wade” was Henry Wade, the longtime District Attorney of Dallas County whose office enforced the Texas criminal statutes she was challenging. Neither person picked the fight in any personal sense. McCorvey was a struggling young woman looking for a way out of a pregnancy she didn’t want. Wade was a prosecutor whose name landed on the case because his office enforced the law.
Norma McCorvey, the Woman Behind Jane Roe
McCorvey was born on September 22, 1947, in Louisiana and grew up in Texas. Her mother was an alcoholic, and she spent time in reform school as a teenager. She married at 16, became pregnant, divorced before the child was born, and gave up custody of that first child to her mother. In 1967, at age 20, she gave birth to a second child and placed that baby for adoption.
In 1969, McCorvey found herself pregnant a third time in Dallas while dealing with addiction and financial instability. She wanted to end the pregnancy. Texas law criminalized abortion except when necessary to save the mother’s life, under statutes that dated to 1854 and carried prison sentences of two to five years for anyone who performed the procedure.1Texas State Law Library. History of Abortion Laws McCorvey first tried to claim she had been raped, thinking that might qualify her for a legal procedure. There was no police report to back the story, and the claim went nowhere. A local adoption attorney named Henry McCluskey then referred her to two young lawyers preparing a constitutional test case.
The pseudonym “Jane Roe” was chosen to protect her identity while the lawsuit moved through the courts. Litigation is slow, and pregnancies aren’t. McCorvey carried the baby to term and placed the child for adoption. She never got the abortion she had sought. She stayed anonymous for years before going public with her real name.
Henry Wade, the Dallas County District Attorney
Henry Wade was one of the most powerful local prosecutors in the country. After law school, he worked as a Special Agent for the FBI, served in the Navy during World War II, and then entered Texas politics.2GovInfo. Congressional Record Volume 147 Part 9 He became District Attorney of Dallas County in 1951 and held the office for 36 years, retiring in 1987. He oversaw thousands of prosecutions during his tenure, including the case against Jack Ruby for the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. His conviction rate was so high that local defense attorneys reportedly called themselves the “seven percent club.”
Wade’s name is on the case for a procedural reason. To challenge a state law as unconstitutional, a plaintiff has to sue the official responsible for enforcing it. In Dallas County, that was Wade. He had no personal role in McCorvey’s situation, never argued the case before the Supreme Court, and appeared on the docket by virtue of his office.
His broader legacy came under harder scrutiny later. After his retirement, DNA evidence overturned at least 25 convictions secured during his tenure. Between 2001 and 2008, Dallas County saw more DNA exonerations than any other county in the country. Investigators found that in some cases his office had deliberately withheld evidence that might have changed the outcome at trial. Wade died in 2001.
What Happened to McCorvey After the Ruling
The Supreme Court ruled in McCorvey’s favor on January 22, 1973, striking down the Texas statutes 7–2.3Justia. Roe v Wade 410 US 113 By then her third child had already been born and placed for adoption. Her own life after the decision took turns that nobody predicted.
For years McCorvey was a visible figure in the abortion-rights movement. In the mid-1990s she reversed publicly and dramatically. She became a born-again Christian, was baptized by Reverend Flip Benham of Operation Rescue, and began working with anti-abortion organizations. She told interviewers that her involvement in the case was “the biggest mistake of my life” and became a vocal opponent of the precedent that carried her pseudonym.
McCorvey died of heart failure on February 18, 2017, at age 69. Her story had one more turn. In the 2020 FX documentary AKA Jane Roe, filmed during the last year of her life, McCorvey delivered what the filmmakers called a deathbed confession. She said her anti-abortion advocacy had been an act, paid for by the organizations she worked with. “I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say,” she said. “It was all an act.” Whether that final account was the definitive version or the last of many reinventions isn’t something anyone can settle. She lived a life shaped by other people’s need for her to be a symbol.
What the Case Means Now
The precedent tied to their names no longer exists as federal constitutional law. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, concluding that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and returning authority over abortion law to the states.4Justia. Dobbs v Jackson Womens Health Organization 597 US 215 McCorvey and Wade are still the two names people mean when they say “Roe” and “Wade,” but the ruling those names anchored for nearly 50 years is no longer the law.