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The Family Roe: An American Story
Despite her famous pseudonym, “Jane Roe,” no one knows the truth about Norma McCorvey (1947–2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1969 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent hundreds of hours with Norma, discovered her personal papers—a previously unseen trove—and witnessed her final moments. The Family Roe presents her life in full. Propelled by the crosscurrents of sex and religion, gender and class, it is a life that tells the story of abortion in America.
Prager begins that story on the banks of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of her forebears. A pregnancy then upended Norma’s life too, and the Dallas waitress became Jane Roe.
Drawing on a decade of research, Prager reveals the woman behind the pseudonym, writing in novelistic detail of her unknown life from her time as a sex worker in Dallas, to her private thoughts on family and abortion, to her dealings with feminist and Christian leaders, to the three daughters she placed for adoption.
Prager found those women, including the youngest—Baby Roe—now fifty years old. She shares her story in The Family Roe for the first time, from her tortured interactions with her birth mother, to her emotional first meeting with her sisters, to the burden that was uniquely hers from conception.
The Family Roe abounds in such revelations—not only about Norma and her children but about the broader “family” connected to the case. Prager tells the stories of activists and bystanders alike whose lives intertwined with Roe. In particular, he introduces three figures as important as they are unknown: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets.
An epic work spanning fifty years of American history, The Family Roe will change the way you think about our enduring American divide: the right to choose or the right to life.
Prager begins that story on the banks of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of her forebears. A pregnancy then upended Norma’s life too, and the Dallas waitress became Jane Roe.
Drawing on a decade of research, Prager reveals the woman behind the pseudonym, writing in novelistic detail of her unknown life from her time as a sex worker in Dallas, to her private thoughts on family and abortion, to her dealings with feminist and Christian leaders, to the three daughters she placed for adoption.
Prager found those women, including the youngest—Baby Roe—now fifty years old. She shares her story in The Family Roe for the first time, from her tortured interactions with her birth mother, to her emotional first meeting with her sisters, to the burden that was uniquely hers from conception.
The Family Roe abounds in such revelations—not only about Norma and her children but about the broader “family” connected to the case. Prager tells the stories of activists and bystanders alike whose lives intertwined with Roe. In particular, he introduces three figures as important as they are unknown: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets.
An epic work spanning fifty years of American history, The Family Roe will change the way you think about our enduring American divide: the right to choose or the right to life.
672 pages, Hardcover
First published September 14, 2021
588 people are currently reading
8042 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Prager
4 books60 followersJoshua Prager writes for publications including Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, where he was a senior writer for eight years. George Will has described his work as "exemplary journalistic sleuthing."
--from the author's website
--from the author's website
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 371 reviews
October 23, 2021
I've identified as a feminist for pretty much my entire life, so Joshua Prager's deeply reported book about the woman at the heart of Roe v. Wade(Norma McCorvey), her family, and the impact of this case, was immediately exciting for me to read. But in the end result, this 600-page book feels at once too narrow and too broad.
To be clear, much of what Prager uncovered in the years he spent digging into her family was gripping and revelatory. Many folks know that the verdict in Roe came well after McCorvey gave birth to this child she was not prepared to parent; fewer know that this was her third pregnancy, and her third child she gave up for adoption. Prager traces McCorvey family tree and lineage back several generations of Southern Jim Crow poverty and family dysfunction, and he follows the story forwards by examining the life paths of the three McCorvey children (only one of whom is raised with any occasional connection to McCorvey before adulthood). With McCorvey, the more we get to know her family of origin, the clearer it seems that she was almost doomed from the start; she is the third generation of women who are forced into motherhood early (with a heaping helping of Southern shame and denial to make the whole enterprise even less promising), and the crushing poverty and abuse make her subsequent, chaotic life easier to understand. McCorvey is a force of chaos and confusion for her entire 80-year life. She latches onto first her identity as Jane Roe, and then a reclaimed identity as a born-again pro-lifer (born again both ideologically, and religiously--first as an evangelical, then Catholic). These seem mostly efforts for her to have both an identity, and frankly also income, and these parts of her story are just ultimately hard to read. Her total inconsistency in describing her life and beliefs is the only consistent think about her, and more depressingly, powerful people around her, whether on the right or the left, seem more interested in what they can get out of her in terms of notoriety or income for themselves, than in her. So it's hard for me to judge her too harshly for her self-promotion and opportunism (although the few people who treat McCorvey with decency and love, most notably her life partner Connie Gonzales, are treated wildly poorly by McCorvey herself). If Prager had just limited the story to the family, the book might have been more focused and cohesive (and frankly, he could have saved some of the details of the generational McCorvey dysfunction, which felt unnecessarily repetitive after a while. Do we need really the details of every single housing change McCorvey makes?). But because he also wants to tell the story of Roe and its impacts, the book balloons in every sense, and it loses both structural and narrative cohesion--we now also look at the lawyers who tried the case, the doctors who perform abortions, the activists who protest abortion clinics and murder providers, and the Supreme Court decisions post-Roe.
Most distressingly for me, the attempts to tell the cultural impact of Roe end up, despite all of this detail, seeming ultimately too narrow, because they are mostly focused on *abortion* itself, as opposed to reproduction. For instance, his mini-biography of Mildred Jefferson (the first black woman to graduate Harvard Medical School, who becomes a fervent opponent to abortion and devotes her career to political activism against abortion) spends entirely too much attention picking apart her personality, her marriage, her choice not to become a mother (which Prager presents with a whiff of condemnation as hypocrisy) and what becomes her hoarding tendencies, and only shoehorns in the important discussion of the racism of Margaret Sanger and the early birth control movement into one chapter two-thirds of the way through the book. Jefferson's life choices are clearly motivated in nontrivial ways as a response and resistance to Jim Crow racism, and midcentury white feminism did a terrible job acknowledging the ways in which its political activism focused most closely on advances that disproportionately benefited middle-class white women. It's not hard for me, as a committed feminist, to both disagree with Jefferson's ideological conclusions about abortion, but have plenty of empathy for *why* they were compelling to her as a brilliant black woman whose life choices were consistently dismissed or derailed by folks with greater clout. Serious discussions of abortion should focus not just on abortion but on reproductive justice. The McCorvey family, frankly, are a testament to this--Prager's reporting is at its best when it makes the case (without saying so explicitly) that generational poverty and coerced motherhood has as its far likeliest outcome the perpetuation of family dysfunction. (This tracks with the data on who seeks abortion, which is women who *already have children*--they don't "hate kids" contrary to pro-life mythology, but are struggling to care for the children they already have. They need more social resources and support, instead of judgment and bootstrapping lectures.) Given that this book was released as the Texas Legislature has decided that coerced motherhood (with a side helping of bounty hunters!) is an unalloyed good, the fact that the book isn't quite successful either as a family story or a cultural history feels like a profound opportunity missed. There's plenty that's worth reading *in* the book, but it's a bit of a slog to find.
To be clear, much of what Prager uncovered in the years he spent digging into her family was gripping and revelatory. Many folks know that the verdict in Roe came well after McCorvey gave birth to this child she was not prepared to parent; fewer know that this was her third pregnancy, and her third child she gave up for adoption. Prager traces McCorvey family tree and lineage back several generations of Southern Jim Crow poverty and family dysfunction, and he follows the story forwards by examining the life paths of the three McCorvey children (only one of whom is raised with any occasional connection to McCorvey before adulthood). With McCorvey, the more we get to know her family of origin, the clearer it seems that she was almost doomed from the start; she is the third generation of women who are forced into motherhood early (with a heaping helping of Southern shame and denial to make the whole enterprise even less promising), and the crushing poverty and abuse make her subsequent, chaotic life easier to understand. McCorvey is a force of chaos and confusion for her entire 80-year life. She latches onto first her identity as Jane Roe, and then a reclaimed identity as a born-again pro-lifer (born again both ideologically, and religiously--first as an evangelical, then Catholic). These seem mostly efforts for her to have both an identity, and frankly also income, and these parts of her story are just ultimately hard to read. Her total inconsistency in describing her life and beliefs is the only consistent think about her, and more depressingly, powerful people around her, whether on the right or the left, seem more interested in what they can get out of her in terms of notoriety or income for themselves, than in her. So it's hard for me to judge her too harshly for her self-promotion and opportunism (although the few people who treat McCorvey with decency and love, most notably her life partner Connie Gonzales, are treated wildly poorly by McCorvey herself). If Prager had just limited the story to the family, the book might have been more focused and cohesive (and frankly, he could have saved some of the details of the generational McCorvey dysfunction, which felt unnecessarily repetitive after a while. Do we need really the details of every single housing change McCorvey makes?). But because he also wants to tell the story of Roe and its impacts, the book balloons in every sense, and it loses both structural and narrative cohesion--we now also look at the lawyers who tried the case, the doctors who perform abortions, the activists who protest abortion clinics and murder providers, and the Supreme Court decisions post-Roe.
Most distressingly for me, the attempts to tell the cultural impact of Roe end up, despite all of this detail, seeming ultimately too narrow, because they are mostly focused on *abortion* itself, as opposed to reproduction. For instance, his mini-biography of Mildred Jefferson (the first black woman to graduate Harvard Medical School, who becomes a fervent opponent to abortion and devotes her career to political activism against abortion) spends entirely too much attention picking apart her personality, her marriage, her choice not to become a mother (which Prager presents with a whiff of condemnation as hypocrisy) and what becomes her hoarding tendencies, and only shoehorns in the important discussion of the racism of Margaret Sanger and the early birth control movement into one chapter two-thirds of the way through the book. Jefferson's life choices are clearly motivated in nontrivial ways as a response and resistance to Jim Crow racism, and midcentury white feminism did a terrible job acknowledging the ways in which its political activism focused most closely on advances that disproportionately benefited middle-class white women. It's not hard for me, as a committed feminist, to both disagree with Jefferson's ideological conclusions about abortion, but have plenty of empathy for *why* they were compelling to her as a brilliant black woman whose life choices were consistently dismissed or derailed by folks with greater clout. Serious discussions of abortion should focus not just on abortion but on reproductive justice. The McCorvey family, frankly, are a testament to this--Prager's reporting is at its best when it makes the case (without saying so explicitly) that generational poverty and coerced motherhood has as its far likeliest outcome the perpetuation of family dysfunction. (This tracks with the data on who seeks abortion, which is women who *already have children*--they don't "hate kids" contrary to pro-life mythology, but are struggling to care for the children they already have. They need more social resources and support, instead of judgment and bootstrapping lectures.) Given that this book was released as the Texas Legislature has decided that coerced motherhood (with a side helping of bounty hunters!) is an unalloyed good, the fact that the book isn't quite successful either as a family story or a cultural history feels like a profound opportunity missed. There's plenty that's worth reading *in* the book, but it's a bit of a slog to find.
September 17, 2021
4.5 stars
Most people think that Jane Roe got her abortion once Roe v Wade passed, but that is not true. Norma McCorvey gave birth to her baby girl and, like her second child, gave her up for adoption.
"The Family Roe" follows Norma and her family--poor, uneducated, drawn toward alcoholism and drugs, with lives upended by unwanted pregnancies and children. Author Joshua Prager spent years communicating with Norma , finally receiving access to papers Norma didn't even remember having. He includes the stories of Curtis Boyd, a fundamentalist abortionist, Mildred Jefferson, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and fervid anti-abortionist, and the leaders of pro-and anti-abortion factions who influenced Norma's life.
Norma is not likeable. Born on the banks of the Atchafalaya River, she was told that her mother was her sister and her grandmother was her mother. She gave birth to her first child at 17 and left her with her mother/grandmother, having absolutely no interest in the child. Norma was gay, but loved sex with men as well. She was manipulative and self-involved, and in this book very hard to sympathise with. She had entirely forgotten her part in the lawsuit until she thought she might be able to benefit from it.
She wanted to be what she was--gay and pro-choice--but the pro-choice movement found her an unstable role model and when the anti abortion movement stepped in to take her up, she used them for decades to eke out support. Did she believe in any of it? It's hard to tell. She had so many demons, battles, and desires that there is probably no answer.
There were people who loved her for a while, and one who loved her for half her life. Connie Gonzales was her partner through it all, even sticking by when Norma gave up the relationship for her Christian sponsors.
Most interestingly, Prager found and built relationships with her daughters. They struggle with many of the demons Norma did--mental illness, alcoholism, addiction--but manage to build stronger relationships with other than Norma ever did. Norma is delighted that one of her daughters and a granddaughter are Lesbian, even though she treated her own partner so shabbily.
Of course, there is also a lot of coverage of Roe v. Wade and how it morphed over the decades. Since Norma's story is a story of Texas, there is even more to say about the legacy. But "The Family Roe" is so jam-packed that if one more issue were slipped in it would probably explode.
I ripped through this book in three days, testament to its readability and clarity. I confess to skimming some of the legal portions, but I expect to read this book again.
~~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader.
Most people think that Jane Roe got her abortion once Roe v Wade passed, but that is not true. Norma McCorvey gave birth to her baby girl and, like her second child, gave her up for adoption.
"The Family Roe" follows Norma and her family--poor, uneducated, drawn toward alcoholism and drugs, with lives upended by unwanted pregnancies and children. Author Joshua Prager spent years communicating with Norma , finally receiving access to papers Norma didn't even remember having. He includes the stories of Curtis Boyd, a fundamentalist abortionist, Mildred Jefferson, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and fervid anti-abortionist, and the leaders of pro-and anti-abortion factions who influenced Norma's life.
Norma is not likeable. Born on the banks of the Atchafalaya River, she was told that her mother was her sister and her grandmother was her mother. She gave birth to her first child at 17 and left her with her mother/grandmother, having absolutely no interest in the child. Norma was gay, but loved sex with men as well. She was manipulative and self-involved, and in this book very hard to sympathise with. She had entirely forgotten her part in the lawsuit until she thought she might be able to benefit from it.
She wanted to be what she was--gay and pro-choice--but the pro-choice movement found her an unstable role model and when the anti abortion movement stepped in to take her up, she used them for decades to eke out support. Did she believe in any of it? It's hard to tell. She had so many demons, battles, and desires that there is probably no answer.
There were people who loved her for a while, and one who loved her for half her life. Connie Gonzales was her partner through it all, even sticking by when Norma gave up the relationship for her Christian sponsors.
Most interestingly, Prager found and built relationships with her daughters. They struggle with many of the demons Norma did--mental illness, alcoholism, addiction--but manage to build stronger relationships with other than Norma ever did. Norma is delighted that one of her daughters and a granddaughter are Lesbian, even though she treated her own partner so shabbily.
Of course, there is also a lot of coverage of Roe v. Wade and how it morphed over the decades. Since Norma's story is a story of Texas, there is even more to say about the legacy. But "The Family Roe" is so jam-packed that if one more issue were slipped in it would probably explode.
I ripped through this book in three days, testament to its readability and clarity. I confess to skimming some of the legal portions, but I expect to read this book again.
~~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader.
March 23, 2022
Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade had a real name, and it was Norma McCorvey. She gave up all three of her daughters for adoption — including her last, the result of the abortion she never got at the center of the case the Supreme Court used to affirm the federal constitutional right to abortion.
This would, I hope, be a difficult read for everyone, including the abortion rights activist (which I am). Norma was a violent, pathological liar and drunk, and far from ‘the perfect plaintiff.’ It’s rather disgusting to read how her attorneys failed to steer her toward places and ways she could have had the abortion she wanted, instead letting her carry to term and seeking to capitalize on the opportunity to challenge abortion bans.
Throughout her life Norma was exploited by all sides. For a time, she was a pro-choice speaker at marches and rallies, although leaders tried to hush her as much as possible because she was uneducated, crass, and had some ambivalence about abortion. Her poverty and resentment of the way she was treated by the high-falutin’ feminists of her time led her into the arms of the pro-life leaders who also deeply, gravely exploited her (upon her death, Randall Terry asked her daughters if he could have and bury her body rather than have her cremated and kept by the family).
I think it would be useful for other abortion rights activists to read this book. We need to acknowledge how much of the beginning of the current abortion struggle has rested on a decades-long desire to have and shape a perfect, sympathetic story shaped by elites, when, as far as sex, unwanted pregnancy, and oppression is concerned, there are generally a whole bunch of difficult stories and challenging people. Even before I began to read The Family Roe I had been sitting with and would like more of my colleagues to sit with how pro-life people can lure pro-abortion people into their fold. It is not just deception and money, though that’s part of it. Our movement remains very mean girls, though we as a movement less often seek ‘perfect stories’ of abortion by wealthy white women caught in tragic circumstances, as in Norma’s time. We need to create meaningful pathways for inclusion in this movement for people who will never get an A+ on Twitter nor have identities movement leadership finds comfortable. Until then, there will be more Normas who become turncoat stars for a cause seeking to violate human rights and oppress women — to criminalize abortion, miscarriage, and pregnancy.
All that said, The Family Roe is a human story as much as it is a political story. The lives of Norma’s three adopted daughters, and her longtime abused partner, Connie, are so sad, four women caught in the tropical storm of a very difficult person and an all-consuming, bill-paying issue that destroys many people far more sympathetic than Norma who come in hoping to make a difference.
Most of all, I wish for peace for Norma’s daughters who, as spelled out in painful detail in The Family Roe, have been to hell and back too many times to count. Some years ago a pro-choice child of a prominent anti-abortion leader reached out to me for conversation, believing I could help take their famous parent down, who, for reasons I won’t reveal to protect the identity of the person who called, had tripped a wire leading them to believe the prominent anti-abortion leader had finally gone too far. To be caught up in anti-abortion politics through prima-donna parents screaming that ‘abortion is murder’ is a horrific thing for a child. Melissa, Jennifer, and Shelley, Joshua Prager has given us the gift of seeing you as the real people you are. You have deserved better.
This would, I hope, be a difficult read for everyone, including the abortion rights activist (which I am). Norma was a violent, pathological liar and drunk, and far from ‘the perfect plaintiff.’ It’s rather disgusting to read how her attorneys failed to steer her toward places and ways she could have had the abortion she wanted, instead letting her carry to term and seeking to capitalize on the opportunity to challenge abortion bans.
Throughout her life Norma was exploited by all sides. For a time, she was a pro-choice speaker at marches and rallies, although leaders tried to hush her as much as possible because she was uneducated, crass, and had some ambivalence about abortion. Her poverty and resentment of the way she was treated by the high-falutin’ feminists of her time led her into the arms of the pro-life leaders who also deeply, gravely exploited her (upon her death, Randall Terry asked her daughters if he could have and bury her body rather than have her cremated and kept by the family).
I think it would be useful for other abortion rights activists to read this book. We need to acknowledge how much of the beginning of the current abortion struggle has rested on a decades-long desire to have and shape a perfect, sympathetic story shaped by elites, when, as far as sex, unwanted pregnancy, and oppression is concerned, there are generally a whole bunch of difficult stories and challenging people. Even before I began to read The Family Roe I had been sitting with and would like more of my colleagues to sit with how pro-life people can lure pro-abortion people into their fold. It is not just deception and money, though that’s part of it. Our movement remains very mean girls, though we as a movement less often seek ‘perfect stories’ of abortion by wealthy white women caught in tragic circumstances, as in Norma’s time. We need to create meaningful pathways for inclusion in this movement for people who will never get an A+ on Twitter nor have identities movement leadership finds comfortable. Until then, there will be more Normas who become turncoat stars for a cause seeking to violate human rights and oppress women — to criminalize abortion, miscarriage, and pregnancy.
All that said, The Family Roe is a human story as much as it is a political story. The lives of Norma’s three adopted daughters, and her longtime abused partner, Connie, are so sad, four women caught in the tropical storm of a very difficult person and an all-consuming, bill-paying issue that destroys many people far more sympathetic than Norma who come in hoping to make a difference.
Most of all, I wish for peace for Norma’s daughters who, as spelled out in painful detail in The Family Roe, have been to hell and back too many times to count. Some years ago a pro-choice child of a prominent anti-abortion leader reached out to me for conversation, believing I could help take their famous parent down, who, for reasons I won’t reveal to protect the identity of the person who called, had tripped a wire leading them to believe the prominent anti-abortion leader had finally gone too far. To be caught up in anti-abortion politics through prima-donna parents screaming that ‘abortion is murder’ is a horrific thing for a child. Melissa, Jennifer, and Shelley, Joshua Prager has given us the gift of seeing you as the real people you are. You have deserved better.
August 19, 2022
A family story, a human story. Also, a story of politics and law.
But mostly, a very balanced story of the evolution of the pro life and pro choice movements with as little bias we can ever hope to get.
But mostly, a very balanced story of the evolution of the pro life and pro choice movements with as little bias we can ever hope to get.
December 13, 2021
This is the life story of Norma McCorvey, alias Jane Roe, of the famous US Supreme Court case, Roe vs. Wade, that deals with a woman’s right to abortion. It contains many interesting tidbits of information about her as well as her family and the people involved in the case that originated in Dallas, Texas and named Dallas County DA Henry Wade as its defendant.
Many of the characters are or were pretty scuzzy trailer-trash folks. However, the author has, I believe, made a 650 page confusing book out of a basic tale that probably could be told in two or three pages - and I grew tired trying to keep up with his ever-expanding cast of peripheral players.
If you’re curious about the basics of the case, and the legal arguments involved, better save your eyeballs for another source.
Many of the characters are or were pretty scuzzy trailer-trash folks. However, the author has, I believe, made a 650 page confusing book out of a basic tale that probably could be told in two or three pages - and I grew tired trying to keep up with his ever-expanding cast of peripheral players.
If you’re curious about the basics of the case, and the legal arguments involved, better save your eyeballs for another source.
November 4, 2021
This was both amazing and maddening all at the same time. Amazing because the research is top notch. Maddening because Prager included every single detail of that research, no matter how minute, in this account. That's why it's endlessly long. And if you know anything about the history of abortion post-Roe, then you're in for a lot of repetition. If you're a relative novice on the subject, much of this will be informative. But if you follow the Supreme Court and care about this issue already, then much of what is here unrelated to McCorvey and her family, will not be news.
Prager is wonderful on McCorvey herself, on how almost everything that happened in her life and those of her forebears and children is related to poverty. She was a pawn both in the pro-choice and pro-life movements and she played it for all it was worth. It's a profoundly depressing narrative. It's not a great revelation that a court case that took two years to be decided meant that Norma McCorvey wasn't able to terminate her pregnancy. And the daughter she bore as a result of that pregnancy, her third, has not led a particularly interesting life; nor have her sisters. The level of detail on the three daughters was way too much for me. Learning of each and every single time Linda Coffee failed to pay the fee to remain in good standing with the Texas bar was too much. So much of this was too much. The research was indeed formidable but he needed an editor with a heavier hand.
Prager is wonderful on McCorvey herself, on how almost everything that happened in her life and those of her forebears and children is related to poverty. She was a pawn both in the pro-choice and pro-life movements and she played it for all it was worth. It's a profoundly depressing narrative. It's not a great revelation that a court case that took two years to be decided meant that Norma McCorvey wasn't able to terminate her pregnancy. And the daughter she bore as a result of that pregnancy, her third, has not led a particularly interesting life; nor have her sisters. The level of detail on the three daughters was way too much for me. Learning of each and every single time Linda Coffee failed to pay the fee to remain in good standing with the Texas bar was too much. So much of this was too much. The research was indeed formidable but he needed an editor with a heavier hand.
December 12, 2021
Roe v Wade is perhaps one of the most recognizable Supreme Court cases. However, the story behind the case is known to a select few. Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, was simply a means to an end and a woman seeking an abortion but was scared, poor, and unable to get one in Texas. She gave birth to her third child, “the Roe baby” before the case was actually decided. She was selfish, a liar, exploited, politicized, and a horrible “face” of women seeking abortion. Her story is sad and somewhat deserved.
We all need to thank Sarah Weddington, Linda Coffee, Henry Wade, and the countless and exhaustive list of activists, abortion providers, and organizations in support of Roe v Wade and other laws on the pro-choice side. They are the heroes and Norma is nothing but the pregnant person they needed to get the case going.
This book is a comprehensive history of the case, Norma’s life, key players from the pro-choice and pro-life realms, and Norma’s three daughters. It is unbiased, thorough, and informative. An authority on the rise of Roe, the climate at various times of Norma’s life and the battle between two sides, and the current status of this constitutional right for women.
We all need to thank Sarah Weddington, Linda Coffee, Henry Wade, and the countless and exhaustive list of activists, abortion providers, and organizations in support of Roe v Wade and other laws on the pro-choice side. They are the heroes and Norma is nothing but the pregnant person they needed to get the case going.
This book is a comprehensive history of the case, Norma’s life, key players from the pro-choice and pro-life realms, and Norma’s three daughters. It is unbiased, thorough, and informative. An authority on the rise of Roe, the climate at various times of Norma’s life and the battle between two sides, and the current status of this constitutional right for women.
February 28, 2024
An interesting albeit overly-lengthy (672 page, 19 hour audiobook) history of the key players in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade. Prager spent a decade researching and writing this book, including tracking down all three of Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe)'s children, including her youngest child, the Roe baby. There are also many others extensively profiled in the book, including the plaintiff's lawyers in Roe v. Wade, and several medical doctors who are or were well-known figures in the abortion or anti-abortion movement.
Further reading:
The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having―or Being Denied―an Abortion by Diana Greene Foster
The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan
Further reading:
The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having―or Being Denied―an Abortion by Diana Greene Foster
The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan
October 17, 2021
Recognizing and dreading the precipice that this country teeters on, I hurried to purchase and read this book as soon as I learned about it. The Supreme Court will likely soon undo a nearly 50-year-old decision and, as quoted by this book's author from a clerk's prescient memo, reveal "that the Court's reversal is explainable solely by reason of changes in the composition of the Court." It is among the many great hypocrisies of this nation that our political leaders (including the justices and the judiciary below them) trumpet their "safeguarding of prenatal life [yet] disregard policies that safeguard postnatal lives." Their total absence of cognitive dissonance on this point is enough to make a pro-choice woman throw up her hands--something I'm afraid the Trump years acculturated us to do--and take a pass on this book to protect her mental health.
That would be a mistake, at least as long as Roe still stands, because the book largely applies a narrow scope, focused on the life trajectories of Norma McCorvey, her daughters, and others close to the abortion maelstrom. These stories are worth reading and knowing, considering that most of us who feel strongly about abortion also keep it at arm's length. Although the book's pacing bogged down a bit at times, its portrayal of the personal was always compelling. And regardless of the fire and brimstone that rain down from above, the personal complexities that bring people to choose abortion aren't going anywhere.
That would be a mistake, at least as long as Roe still stands, because the book largely applies a narrow scope, focused on the life trajectories of Norma McCorvey, her daughters, and others close to the abortion maelstrom. These stories are worth reading and knowing, considering that most of us who feel strongly about abortion also keep it at arm's length. Although the book's pacing bogged down a bit at times, its portrayal of the personal was always compelling. And regardless of the fire and brimstone that rain down from above, the personal complexities that bring people to choose abortion aren't going anywhere.
May 2, 2023
The Family Roe is a bibliographical account of real “Jane Roe”, Norma McCorvey, of one of the most famous landmark cases in the US legal history, Roe v Wade.
This book is a true masterpiece of investigative reporting. Not only it is well researched, but also a well written account of the lives of the people forever linked to the Roe v Wade: the plaintiff and her lawyers, the pro-life advocates and doctors and many others. The book is informative, interesting and very tactful, considering the provocative nature of the main topic. I personally found the story to be very balanced: the author did not advocate for pro-life or pro-choice agendas, but rather neutrally described the facts.
I personally was very fascinated by the lives of the main characters: Norma herself, her life long partner Connie and Norma daughters. Although they may not be famous in a traditional sense, they all created a truly historical moment that continues to remain a social debate even almost 50 years after Roe v Wade.
Highly recommend this book to readers interested in exploring the legal history of this topic or learning more about the case itself and the real people behind it.
This book is a true masterpiece of investigative reporting. Not only it is well researched, but also a well written account of the lives of the people forever linked to the Roe v Wade: the plaintiff and her lawyers, the pro-life advocates and doctors and many others. The book is informative, interesting and very tactful, considering the provocative nature of the main topic. I personally found the story to be very balanced: the author did not advocate for pro-life or pro-choice agendas, but rather neutrally described the facts.
I personally was very fascinated by the lives of the main characters: Norma herself, her life long partner Connie and Norma daughters. Although they may not be famous in a traditional sense, they all created a truly historical moment that continues to remain a social debate even almost 50 years after Roe v Wade.
Highly recommend this book to readers interested in exploring the legal history of this topic or learning more about the case itself and the real people behind it.
July 11, 2022
No matter which side of the great abortion debate you take, understanding the history of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling issued on January 22, 1973, as told mostly through the people who were directly involved, will give you a more in-depth understanding of this important issue. Written by Joshua Prager, this book that was prodigiously researched for 11 years and became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize is solid journalism told from both sides about what is arguably THE most important political and social dispute of our day.
Some highlights:
• Who was Jane Roe? Norma McCorvey's life story was filled with tragedy, addiction, and poverty. By age 23, she had given birth to three daughters, all of whom were unwanted and all of whom she gave away. Her life story is by turns incredibly sad, weirdly surprising, and utterly shocking.
• Find out Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's personal history that inspired him to write the majority opinion on Roe v. Wade. Oh, and Blackmun was a Republican, nominated to the high court by President Richard Nixon.
• Norma McCorvey was already in her second trimester in 1970 when she turned to an attorney in the hope of getting an abortion in Texas. She was given the anonymous name of "Jane Roe." When Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, her daughter was three years old. What became of this child? Until very recently, no one knew. Find out her heartbreaking reaction when she learned the identity of her birth mother.
• Learn why Linda Coffee, the attorney who filed the first lawsuit on behalf of Jane Roe, lived most of her life in obscurity and was not given credit or recognition for her role that was usurped by co-counsel Sarah Waddington.
• Find out when Norma McCorvey's name was first "outed" to the press—and who did it. And find out how years after the court ruling, Norma lied, cheated, and exploited her celebrity status just to make a buck. In fact, she built an entirely fictional life story based totally on dramatic lies that reputable reporters and newspapers, including The New York Times, fell for.
• Find out who views abortion as a matter of life and death, and who views it as a matter of sex.
• Mildred Fay Jefferson, M.D. was one of the most powerful right-to-life voices and leaders. Find out some of her startling and even shocking personal secrets that kept her from what could have been her highest achievements.
• Learn about the daring turned nefarious turned tragic tactics the pro-life movement employed in their unending fight against abortion doctors and clinics.
The book is journalism at its best with solid reporting based on facts and not hearsay. It is also one of those highly readable nonfiction/history books that is so gripping and compelling I couldn't put it down.
And while my opinions about abortion are firmly in place and won't ever be changed, reading this book made me a better person because I could unemotionally see this explosive issue from both viewpoints--be it the right to choose or the right to life. And that is the real power of reading. We are all part of the Family Roe.
Some highlights:
• Who was Jane Roe? Norma McCorvey's life story was filled with tragedy, addiction, and poverty. By age 23, she had given birth to three daughters, all of whom were unwanted and all of whom she gave away. Her life story is by turns incredibly sad, weirdly surprising, and utterly shocking.
• Find out Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's personal history that inspired him to write the majority opinion on Roe v. Wade. Oh, and Blackmun was a Republican, nominated to the high court by President Richard Nixon.
• Norma McCorvey was already in her second trimester in 1970 when she turned to an attorney in the hope of getting an abortion in Texas. She was given the anonymous name of "Jane Roe." When Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, her daughter was three years old. What became of this child? Until very recently, no one knew. Find out her heartbreaking reaction when she learned the identity of her birth mother.
• Learn why Linda Coffee, the attorney who filed the first lawsuit on behalf of Jane Roe, lived most of her life in obscurity and was not given credit or recognition for her role that was usurped by co-counsel Sarah Waddington.
• Find out when Norma McCorvey's name was first "outed" to the press—and who did it. And find out how years after the court ruling, Norma lied, cheated, and exploited her celebrity status just to make a buck. In fact, she built an entirely fictional life story based totally on dramatic lies that reputable reporters and newspapers, including The New York Times, fell for.
• Find out who views abortion as a matter of life and death, and who views it as a matter of sex.
• Mildred Fay Jefferson, M.D. was one of the most powerful right-to-life voices and leaders. Find out some of her startling and even shocking personal secrets that kept her from what could have been her highest achievements.
• Learn about the daring turned nefarious turned tragic tactics the pro-life movement employed in their unending fight against abortion doctors and clinics.
The book is journalism at its best with solid reporting based on facts and not hearsay. It is also one of those highly readable nonfiction/history books that is so gripping and compelling I couldn't put it down.
And while my opinions about abortion are firmly in place and won't ever be changed, reading this book made me a better person because I could unemotionally see this explosive issue from both viewpoints--be it the right to choose or the right to life. And that is the real power of reading. We are all part of the Family Roe.
November 20, 2021
I greatly appreciated the tremendous amount of meticulous research and interviews the author conducted to write this book. I just wanted to scream at certain points. While Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe, in Roe vs Wade had quite a difficult and traumatic life, she was difficult to sympathize with at times. She was definitely a pawn used by both the pro choice and pro life camp. Her “conversion” to Pro life and Catholicism later in her life was like so much of her life, flawed, hypocritical and phony. But, it was interesting to read about her 3 daughters, the youngest was the baby born after she sued for right to get abortion. Lots of sadness and trauma and instability in that family. Interesting that author introduced us to some other players on both sides of abortion: a staunch African American female physician, a pro choice physician who has performed many abortions over 50 year career in Texas and New Mexico clinics and the lawyer who worked on Roe who went into a life of obscurity and downward spiral. Sometimes, the book was rambling and sometimes Norma frustrated me but she does deserve compassion. If you want a thorough understanding of Roe vs Wade, this is a good book to read.
February 3, 2022
Joshua Prager spent 11 years researching and writing The Family Roe and he has done an incredible job as a journalist, not an advocate, of presenting the pro-life and pro-choice protagonists over the past several decades.
Intimate details about Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) and her three daughters and their various challenging lives provides historical context to the monumental Roe v. Wade decision.
Prager also delves into the professional and personal lives of attorneys, judges, doctors, politicians, and clergy who were impact players in this real life drama.
Prager's wife and two daughters must be very proud of him.
I highly recommend this book because it is so rare to find articles and books that provide highly researched information on all sides of a controversial topic.
Intimate details about Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) and her three daughters and their various challenging lives provides historical context to the monumental Roe v. Wade decision.
Prager also delves into the professional and personal lives of attorneys, judges, doctors, politicians, and clergy who were impact players in this real life drama.
Prager's wife and two daughters must be very proud of him.
I highly recommend this book because it is so rare to find articles and books that provide highly researched information on all sides of a controversial topic.
June 15, 2022
I listened to this and it was fascinating. Primarily the story of Norma McCorvey aka Jane Roe of Roe v, Wade, it also talks about the attorneys, and other people involved in the case. It was really interesting to hear about the people behind the case. I definitely recommend it, whatever side of the abortion debate you fall on.
June 15, 2022
This is a worthwhile read for those who want and in-depth look at the unknown people behind the Roe v. Wade case. This is an even more important read at the present time, as the GOP seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade and abortion rights in this country.
January 9, 2024
Incredibly well researched - journalism at its finest!
January 26, 2023
Extremely detailed. Interesting. But felt a little disjointed, like something was missing.
February 1, 2023
4.5 stars. This was an impeccably researched and rather unbiased book about a topic that is so often discussed only through the lens of our personal beliefs. Jane Roe led a complex and often sad life and was exploited by people on both sides of the abortion issue. I lopped off half a star because I think it could’ve been a hundred pages or so shorter and was a bit repetitive at times.
July 1, 2023
Wow! Incredible read. The author covered all angles of abortion from the mid 20th century until now, but more than that, he gave the reader an intimate look into Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe), the three daughters she placed for adoption, and all of the people who had an influence on her life. No matter your stance on abortion, this is an important story about one person's life. Henry Taylor, a pastor, said "In my fifty years, I've never met a more exploited person."
April 12, 2024
3.5 - I’m begging goodreads to give us half stars!!!
Interesting read but it’s far too long. Could have been 4 or 5 stars if it was just about Norma and her children.
Interesting read but it’s far too long. Could have been 4 or 5 stars if it was just about Norma and her children.
October 13, 2021
This is one of the best books I've read. There's so much I want to say about it, but I hate long, drawn-out reviews, so I'll try & keep it brief. . .
Abortion is a sensitive subject few people want to discuss. (Therein lies the reason privacy was used to justify the SCOTUS ruling back in 1973.) But we need to keep in mind that it's the zealots on both sides who march for & against it. Most of us are in the "mushy middle" including Norma McCorvey. Her opinion on abortion remained unchanged, regardless of which side she proclaimed to be for. Perhaps there might've been less vitriol if more people would've actually heard her.
If there is one thing to take away from this book, it's this: The people in this story are real, flesh-and-blood human beings. They all have flaws & faults just like the rest of us. But rather than demonize them or worship them, we need to remember they have feelings & hopes & dreams just like everyone else.
This is an absolutely wonderful book. Kudos to the amount of time, passion, & research Mr Prager put into this complicated & highly charged story. Everyone should read this book.
Abortion is a sensitive subject few people want to discuss. (Therein lies the reason privacy was used to justify the SCOTUS ruling back in 1973.) But we need to keep in mind that it's the zealots on both sides who march for & against it. Most of us are in the "mushy middle" including Norma McCorvey. Her opinion on abortion remained unchanged, regardless of which side she proclaimed to be for. Perhaps there might've been less vitriol if more people would've actually heard her.
If there is one thing to take away from this book, it's this: The people in this story are real, flesh-and-blood human beings. They all have flaws & faults just like the rest of us. But rather than demonize them or worship them, we need to remember they have feelings & hopes & dreams just like everyone else.
This is an absolutely wonderful book. Kudos to the amount of time, passion, & research Mr Prager put into this complicated & highly charged story. Everyone should read this book.
June 2, 2022
There were many personal stories told ,concerning people who were involved with Norma or Wade v roe . The personal stories are woven together which helps explain why these people acted and thought like they did. Many sad, depressing situations with lifestyles. Norma allowed herself to be used to support whatever agenda paid her the most attention and money. I enjoy reading personal stories but there was so much information given I am unable to recall it all!!! I’m glad I listened to the book AND set it at 1.25 speed, allowing me yo listen faster.!!
Norma’s life story is an example of how a person’s actions and words affect everyone in their life!!
Norma’s life story is an example of how a person’s actions and words affect everyone in their life!!
March 21, 2022
4.5 stars, audiobook edition
The story this book tells is just wild. I can’t describe it any other way. From Norma’s grandparents and great-grandparents, to her grandchildren, and cutting through with how religion, sex, law, and LGBT issues tie all those generations together, it’s really a hell of a ride. The author does veer from the small-scale subject of “the Family Roe” to the macro scale and back again, which could be frustrating to some. But if you’re looking for one book that brings everything related to Roe v Wade and abortion in the US together, this book is it.
The story this book tells is just wild. I can’t describe it any other way. From Norma’s grandparents and great-grandparents, to her grandchildren, and cutting through with how religion, sex, law, and LGBT issues tie all those generations together, it’s really a hell of a ride. The author does veer from the small-scale subject of “the Family Roe” to the macro scale and back again, which could be frustrating to some. But if you’re looking for one book that brings everything related to Roe v Wade and abortion in the US together, this book is it.
June 2, 2022
Another reviewer nailed it when they described this as both too narrow and too broad at once. There's a lot of really interesting information, but the book as a whole suffers from trying to do a deep dive on Jane Roe herself/her family/her story as well as an analysis on the legal ramifications of the case and how abortion providers have been affected. The parts that were interesting were truly fascinating, but there's a LOT that could've been edited out.
September 27, 2023
4.5 / True Journalism at its finest. Prager offers up a well-rounded and well-executed history of the abortion conversation in America. I checked this out from the library – so ofc my favorite snippets have to be outlined (in depth) below.
Beginning on page 98, Prager documents a shift in the abortion conversation, one surrounding the idea of viability. ”With respect to the state’s important and legitimate interest in potential life…the ‘compelling’ point is at viability.” A watershed opinion has been written. Upon its release the next month, tens of millions of American women would have a constitutional right to end their pregnancies.
”As the number of legal abortions rose, the number of illegal ones fell, from an estimated 130,000 in 1972 to 17,000 in 1975. The number of deaths resulting from illegal abortions fell too, over that same period, from 39 to 4. It was , noted the author Leslie Reagan, “an improvement in maternal mortality that ranks with the invention of antisepsis and antibiotics.” (p. 169)
In reference to Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992) “Roe” [Souter] wrote, “implicates uniquely powerful stare decisis concerns… If Roe is overruled the public will understand that the Court’s reversal is explainable solely by reason of changes in the composition of the Court. The damage to the public understanding of the Court’s decisions as neutral expositions of the law … would be incalculable.”
The ruling was a compromise. Half of it, which Blackmun and Stevens now joined, upheld the “essential holding of Roe,’ namely, the right to an abortion through viability. The other half adopted a new subjective standard of abortion regulation, O’Connor’s “undue burden.” …Blackmun and Stevens joined the troika in striking down the spousal notification requirement, and the remaining four justices voted with them to uphold other regulations. The “undue burden” standard, which was now effectively the law, did away with the trimester framework of Roe; henceforth, states could impose certain abortion regulations from conception on… Still the upshot of Casey was that is preserved Roe. And on June 29, 1992, O’Connor, Kennedy and Souter each read aloud portions of their joint opinion, the first time in forty-four years that an opinion of the Court carried the name of more than one justice. (p. 230)
Upon marriage counselor Vincent Rue coining the term PAS (post-abortion syndrome) and testifying its effects to congress in 1981, a Reagan advisor suggested to the President that his Surgeon General, Dr. Koop, address the syndrome. The doctor declined to write a report, explaining … that the 250-odd studies he had reviewed on abortion and mental health were “flawed methodologically [and that] the data did not support the premise that abortion does nor does not cause or contribute to psychological problems.” When Koop received criticism from the pro-life community for being “afraid to apply his own values” he responded on Good Morning, America, saying he had “always been able to separate my personal beliefs from my responsibilities as Surgeon General.” (p.309)
When abortion returned to the Supreme Court with the 2007 case of Gonzalas v. Carhart, a case concerning a federal ban against a method of late-term abortion, the justice at its center cited PAS in his decision. “While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon it seems unexceptional to conclude that some women come to regret their choice to abort”… It was a remarkable opinion. Ever since Roe, the pro-life argument against abortion has focused on the fetus. It had now shifted to the woman. (9.320)
”Within two years of Ro, state legislatures had passed fifty-eight bills targeting abortion… Over one nineteen-year stretch in Texas, just two of eighty-four proposed bills on abortion passed… In 2011, one year after Republicans took control of twenty-six state legislatures and twenty-nine governorships, states enacted ninety-two abortion regulations -nearly triple the number of regulations in any other year since Roe…The new laws were a welter of mandated consent and counseling, of waiting period and warnings. Intrusion, of course, was the point. Abortion was already safe” (There were 0.6 deaths per 100,000 legal and induced abortions versus 8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births).
“The new laws intended also to make abortion difficult to provide. They regulated clinics by passing what the pro-choice termed TRAP laws…Texas law now required doctors to tell patients of a nonexistent link between abortion and breast cancer.” Additionally, only hospitals or surgical centers could abort fetuses at least sixteen weeks old and doctors performing abortions needed to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. “To get admitting privileges doctors often must admit a certain number of patients to a particular hospital. But owing to the safety of abortion, abortion providers admit so few patients that they rarely meet that number (p.356)
”At the time of Obergefell, the U.S. was one of 58 countries to allow abortion for any reason (until varying points in pregnancy). Many of those countries had eased their restrictions in the decades after Roe. In most cases…doing so was enough to settle the debate. Not in America.” (p. 438)
”Scalia has been replaced by a fellow conservative, and Trump was in the white house. Yes, the Supreme Court has only just invalidated unnecessary abortion regulations. But by the close of 2017, Republican statehouse -helped again by Americans United for Life… had passed 63 more, among them seven types of abortion bans that concerned, for example, gestational age, gender, race and disability. And yet, Roe still stood –“The Great White Whale,” wrote Kaplan of the GOP.”
Upon Anothony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the court 50-48. ”As Mark Joseph Stern put in the Slate the same day: “The constitutional right to abortion access in America is living on borrowed time.” (p. 450)
[Ginsburg’s] decision in her eighties not to leave the bench during the Obama presidency now threatened [advanced feminist] ideals and with them legal abortion- that which she had voiced support for at her 1993 confirmation hearing. “This is something central to a woman’s life, to her dignity,” she had told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It’s a decision that she must make for herself.” In 2018, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as Ginsburg’s replacement, without obtaining a single Democratic vote. (p. 460)
Honorable Mention
Curtis Boyd being subpoenaed by a new congressional committee and abortion access during the COVID-19 pandemic (p. 458)
Public Opinion surrounding D&E procedures (p.339)
George Tiller and late-term abortions (p. 346)
Beginning on page 98, Prager documents a shift in the abortion conversation, one surrounding the idea of viability. ”With respect to the state’s important and legitimate interest in potential life…the ‘compelling’ point is at viability.” A watershed opinion has been written. Upon its release the next month, tens of millions of American women would have a constitutional right to end their pregnancies.
”As the number of legal abortions rose, the number of illegal ones fell, from an estimated 130,000 in 1972 to 17,000 in 1975. The number of deaths resulting from illegal abortions fell too, over that same period, from 39 to 4. It was , noted the author Leslie Reagan, “an improvement in maternal mortality that ranks with the invention of antisepsis and antibiotics.” (p. 169)
In reference to Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992) “Roe” [Souter] wrote, “implicates uniquely powerful stare decisis concerns… If Roe is overruled the public will understand that the Court’s reversal is explainable solely by reason of changes in the composition of the Court. The damage to the public understanding of the Court’s decisions as neutral expositions of the law … would be incalculable.”
The ruling was a compromise. Half of it, which Blackmun and Stevens now joined, upheld the “essential holding of Roe,’ namely, the right to an abortion through viability. The other half adopted a new subjective standard of abortion regulation, O’Connor’s “undue burden.” …Blackmun and Stevens joined the troika in striking down the spousal notification requirement, and the remaining four justices voted with them to uphold other regulations. The “undue burden” standard, which was now effectively the law, did away with the trimester framework of Roe; henceforth, states could impose certain abortion regulations from conception on… Still the upshot of Casey was that is preserved Roe. And on June 29, 1992, O’Connor, Kennedy and Souter each read aloud portions of their joint opinion, the first time in forty-four years that an opinion of the Court carried the name of more than one justice. (p. 230)
Upon marriage counselor Vincent Rue coining the term PAS (post-abortion syndrome) and testifying its effects to congress in 1981, a Reagan advisor suggested to the President that his Surgeon General, Dr. Koop, address the syndrome. The doctor declined to write a report, explaining … that the 250-odd studies he had reviewed on abortion and mental health were “flawed methodologically [and that] the data did not support the premise that abortion does nor does not cause or contribute to psychological problems.” When Koop received criticism from the pro-life community for being “afraid to apply his own values” he responded on Good Morning, America, saying he had “always been able to separate my personal beliefs from my responsibilities as Surgeon General.” (p.309)
When abortion returned to the Supreme Court with the 2007 case of Gonzalas v. Carhart, a case concerning a federal ban against a method of late-term abortion, the justice at its center cited PAS in his decision. “While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon it seems unexceptional to conclude that some women come to regret their choice to abort”… It was a remarkable opinion. Ever since Roe, the pro-life argument against abortion has focused on the fetus. It had now shifted to the woman. (9.320)
”Within two years of Ro, state legislatures had passed fifty-eight bills targeting abortion… Over one nineteen-year stretch in Texas, just two of eighty-four proposed bills on abortion passed… In 2011, one year after Republicans took control of twenty-six state legislatures and twenty-nine governorships, states enacted ninety-two abortion regulations -nearly triple the number of regulations in any other year since Roe…The new laws were a welter of mandated consent and counseling, of waiting period and warnings. Intrusion, of course, was the point. Abortion was already safe” (There were 0.6 deaths per 100,000 legal and induced abortions versus 8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births).
“The new laws intended also to make abortion difficult to provide. They regulated clinics by passing what the pro-choice termed TRAP laws…Texas law now required doctors to tell patients of a nonexistent link between abortion and breast cancer.” Additionally, only hospitals or surgical centers could abort fetuses at least sixteen weeks old and doctors performing abortions needed to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. “To get admitting privileges doctors often must admit a certain number of patients to a particular hospital. But owing to the safety of abortion, abortion providers admit so few patients that they rarely meet that number (p.356)
”At the time of Obergefell, the U.S. was one of 58 countries to allow abortion for any reason (until varying points in pregnancy). Many of those countries had eased their restrictions in the decades after Roe. In most cases…doing so was enough to settle the debate. Not in America.” (p. 438)
”Scalia has been replaced by a fellow conservative, and Trump was in the white house. Yes, the Supreme Court has only just invalidated unnecessary abortion regulations. But by the close of 2017, Republican statehouse -helped again by Americans United for Life… had passed 63 more, among them seven types of abortion bans that concerned, for example, gestational age, gender, race and disability. And yet, Roe still stood –“The Great White Whale,” wrote Kaplan of the GOP.”
Upon Anothony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the court 50-48. ”As Mark Joseph Stern put in the Slate the same day: “The constitutional right to abortion access in America is living on borrowed time.” (p. 450)
[Ginsburg’s] decision in her eighties not to leave the bench during the Obama presidency now threatened [advanced feminist] ideals and with them legal abortion- that which she had voiced support for at her 1993 confirmation hearing. “This is something central to a woman’s life, to her dignity,” she had told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It’s a decision that she must make for herself.” In 2018, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as Ginsburg’s replacement, without obtaining a single Democratic vote. (p. 460)
Honorable Mention
Curtis Boyd being subpoenaed by a new congressional committee and abortion access during the COVID-19 pandemic (p. 458)
Public Opinion surrounding D&E procedures (p.339)
George Tiller and late-term abortions (p. 346)
November 13, 2021
Thorough
Some redundancies but thorough account of a landmark case and the repercussions. Amazing the key players were who they were
Some redundancies but thorough account of a landmark case and the repercussions. Amazing the key players were who they were
September 5, 2022
5/7. This is one time my 7 point scale is not meeting my needs, as I was going to give this a 6, but it isn't quite as good as other books to which I have given a 6, so I'm giving it a very high 5. This was a very interesting read, giving such a nuanced and in depth treatment of the issue of abortion. It gives a lot of information -- in some respects, perhaps too much information. I had understood this to be a story of the Roe family -- i.e. the family of Norma McCorvey, her parents, siblings, grandparents, even great or great-grandparents, and of course, the children she had. And it did give us information on those people. The level of dysfunction and the sad lives that stemmed from multiple unwanted pregnancies in a long line of McCorvey's ancestors truly is "an American story," as its subtitle proclaims. We also get some information about Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington (less about Weddington, since she had refused to speak with the author, and she is not portrayed in a particularly favorable light), which seems valid, since they were major players in the court case.
But we also get some extensive information about two doctors significantly impacted by the abortion issue -- Dr. Curtis Boyd, who performs a large number of abortions and eventually becomes one of only a couple of doctors willing to provide third trimester abortions, and Dr. Mildred Jefferson, who was the first Black woman accepted to Harvard Medical School, but descends into some kind of mental instability due, at least in part, to the double whammy of racism and misogyny that prevented her career from blossoming as a surgeon, and instead becomes dedicated to the anti-abortion cause, becoming a loud voice against abortion for any reason. The lives of both of these doctors are fascinating and worthy of biographies in their own right, but ultimately, neither really has anything to do with Norma McCorvey. So the scope of this book is very large, sometimes becoming repetitive, and spending a good amount of time on Norma's family, but also on the history of abortion in the United States in the last seventy five years or so. I found the parts about abortion law less interesting, perhaps because I already knew most of that. And while I did enjoy reading about the doctors Boyd and Jefferson, they're not really a part of the story of Norma, and the lack of boundaries limiting the story to Norma's family make the book very broad. It could, perhaps, be about 200 pages shorter. (The book dwells extensively on Linda Coffee's failure to pay her bar dues several times, and I had expected this to be some kind of defense to perhaps a larger scandal of which I was unaware -- i.e. accusations she'd been disbarred or something. But no -- these payment lapses are part of a larger story showing that Coffee isn't a diligent bill-payer and is financially destitute in her later years. This is a very sad story on its own, and it seems that she must have suffered from Depression or some other mental illness that probably should have been treatable. But, again, this digresses from what was marketed as the central focus of this book, which was the Roe (McCorvey) family.)
I bought this book soon after its release because I was very interested to read it. I got my book club to agree and we'll be meeting soon to discuss it -- I'm very much looking forward to the meeting because this book gives so many potential discussion points. And I did very much enjoy reading it and I'm glad I read it. I do recommend it, but I wish it could have been a little tighter.
A couple other points: I was amazed at how much homosexuality figured into the book. It is so sad to think of how, potentially, Norma's life would have been so much better had she simply been allowed to live as a lesbian, with the partner she loved. (Hard to say if she would have been happy, given her personality and relationship issues, but her issues were certainly exacerbated by her not being allowed to be who she was -- especially in the end when she was mentally captured by the religious pro-lifers and forced to disavow her relationship with her partner.) The horrible, homophobic-based murder of the attorney who handled Norma's two adoption relinquishments is a sad footnote in the story. Homophobia certainly also harmed Coffee, and that may have contributed to her apparent depression. It's also sad to see that all of Norma's daughters have had difficult lives, and it's hard to say how much was due to genetic (or epigenetic) links to Norma's family, who had experienced multiple traumas that stemmed from poverty, or how much were due to the influences in the way they were raised, or in trauma stemming from the adoptions themselves.
But we also get some extensive information about two doctors significantly impacted by the abortion issue -- Dr. Curtis Boyd, who performs a large number of abortions and eventually becomes one of only a couple of doctors willing to provide third trimester abortions, and Dr. Mildred Jefferson, who was the first Black woman accepted to Harvard Medical School, but descends into some kind of mental instability due, at least in part, to the double whammy of racism and misogyny that prevented her career from blossoming as a surgeon, and instead becomes dedicated to the anti-abortion cause, becoming a loud voice against abortion for any reason. The lives of both of these doctors are fascinating and worthy of biographies in their own right, but ultimately, neither really has anything to do with Norma McCorvey. So the scope of this book is very large, sometimes becoming repetitive, and spending a good amount of time on Norma's family, but also on the history of abortion in the United States in the last seventy five years or so. I found the parts about abortion law less interesting, perhaps because I already knew most of that. And while I did enjoy reading about the doctors Boyd and Jefferson, they're not really a part of the story of Norma, and the lack of boundaries limiting the story to Norma's family make the book very broad. It could, perhaps, be about 200 pages shorter. (The book dwells extensively on Linda Coffee's failure to pay her bar dues several times, and I had expected this to be some kind of defense to perhaps a larger scandal of which I was unaware -- i.e. accusations she'd been disbarred or something. But no -- these payment lapses are part of a larger story showing that Coffee isn't a diligent bill-payer and is financially destitute in her later years. This is a very sad story on its own, and it seems that she must have suffered from Depression or some other mental illness that probably should have been treatable. But, again, this digresses from what was marketed as the central focus of this book, which was the Roe (McCorvey) family.)
I bought this book soon after its release because I was very interested to read it. I got my book club to agree and we'll be meeting soon to discuss it -- I'm very much looking forward to the meeting because this book gives so many potential discussion points. And I did very much enjoy reading it and I'm glad I read it. I do recommend it, but I wish it could have been a little tighter.
A couple other points: I was amazed at how much homosexuality figured into the book. It is so sad to think of how, potentially, Norma's life would have been so much better had she simply been allowed to live as a lesbian, with the partner she loved. (Hard to say if she would have been happy, given her personality and relationship issues, but her issues were certainly exacerbated by her not being allowed to be who she was -- especially in the end when she was mentally captured by the religious pro-lifers and forced to disavow her relationship with her partner.) The horrible, homophobic-based murder of the attorney who handled Norma's two adoption relinquishments is a sad footnote in the story. Homophobia certainly also harmed Coffee, and that may have contributed to her apparent depression. It's also sad to see that all of Norma's daughters have had difficult lives, and it's hard to say how much was due to genetic (or epigenetic) links to Norma's family, who had experienced multiple traumas that stemmed from poverty, or how much were due to the influences in the way they were raised, or in trauma stemming from the adoptions themselves.
July 5, 2022
Four generations of abuse, addiction, poverty, and unwanted pregnancies inform the opening arguments about abortion
In the years since Roe v Wade, many have assumed the woman known as Jane Roe had obtained an abortion but Norma McCorvey's third child was more than two years old when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in January, 1973. That court decision and Norma's decision in the 1980s and '90s to become a spokesperson for the pro-choice movement and later, the pro-life movement drive this non-biased exploration of the people, the propaganda, and the politics that surround abortion.
Prager's training as a journalist is obvious. In 2010, he set out to write about Baby Roe and quickly learned how complex that goal would be—so much so that this book was eleven years in the making and turned into a comprehensive look at what came before and what came after the 1973 decision. Prager found family members other writers hadn't been able to locate, talked with leaders on both sides of the issue, and countered the inconsistencies and falsehoods Norma made throughout the past fifty years as she spoke and wrote for both sides of the debate. He deftly introduces those who are pro-choice and those who are pro-life with empathy and treats their differences with objectivity and respect. Most importantly, he shows how Norma was exploited and manipulated by nearly everyone she came into contact with while acknowledging that she also learned how to make a living from those who manipulated and exploited her.
The Family Roe is not an easy read but it's vital to the discussions we have with our families, healthcare providers, and politicians. Many of the chapters are—simply-put—sad and gut-wrenching, the narrative compassionate but intense. The historical context of the law and medicine are as riveting as the personal stories of the "Roe" family.
This 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist is for you if you're not familiar with some of these people and organizations:
Spoiler alert: Yes, Prager found the woman he originally set out to interview in 2010; readers are sure to find her life story just as important to the debate as Norma's.
In the years since Roe v Wade, many have assumed the woman known as Jane Roe had obtained an abortion but Norma McCorvey's third child was more than two years old when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in January, 1973. That court decision and Norma's decision in the 1980s and '90s to become a spokesperson for the pro-choice movement and later, the pro-life movement drive this non-biased exploration of the people, the propaganda, and the politics that surround abortion.
Prager's training as a journalist is obvious. In 2010, he set out to write about Baby Roe and quickly learned how complex that goal would be—so much so that this book was eleven years in the making and turned into a comprehensive look at what came before and what came after the 1973 decision. Prager found family members other writers hadn't been able to locate, talked with leaders on both sides of the issue, and countered the inconsistencies and falsehoods Norma made throughout the past fifty years as she spoke and wrote for both sides of the debate. He deftly introduces those who are pro-choice and those who are pro-life with empathy and treats their differences with objectivity and respect. Most importantly, he shows how Norma was exploited and manipulated by nearly everyone she came into contact with while acknowledging that she also learned how to make a living from those who manipulated and exploited her.
The Family Roe is not an easy read but it's vital to the discussions we have with our families, healthcare providers, and politicians. Many of the chapters are—simply-put—sad and gut-wrenching, the narrative compassionate but intense. The historical context of the law and medicine are as riveting as the personal stories of the "Roe" family.
This 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist is for you if you're not familiar with some of these people and organizations:
Jane Roe. Norma McCorvey. Melissa. Jennifer. Shelley. Velma. Mary. Bertha. Connie Gonzalez. Elwood "Woody" McCorvey. Pete Aquilar. Bill Wheaton. Donna Kebabjian. Ruth Schmidt. // Henry McCluskey. Linda Coffee. Sarah Weddington. Virginia Whitehill. // Gloria Allred. Flip Benham. Frank Di Bugnara. Curtis Boyd. Hector Ferrer. Nellie Gray. Warren Hern. Mildred Fay Jefferson. Ronda Mackey. James McMahon. Troy Newman. Allan Parker. Frank Pavone. Rob Schenck. Charlotte Taft. Randall Terry. George Tiller. Daniel Vinzant. // Abortion Rights Action League. National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws. Jane Roe Resource Center. National Organization for Women. March for Life. National Right to Life Committee. Operation Rescue. Priests for Life. Women Exploited by Abortion.
Spoiler alert: Yes, Prager found the woman he originally set out to interview in 2010; readers are sure to find her life story just as important to the debate as Norma's.
June 25, 2024
Amazing is all I can say. It's a long, tough read, but highly readable, if that makes sense. Everything you wanted to know about all the parties involved in Roe v. Wade, and more. For example, I had no idea that the Wade in Roe v. Wade was pro-choice, but he was he DA of Dallas, so he was linked to this case as the opposing name, whether he agreed with the abortion statutes at the time or not (and he did not).
Prager does a stunning job of introducing us to tangential but important figures on both sides of the abortion debate, including Mildred Jefferson, whose fight against abortion seemed to take the place of the fight against racism, the real villain that kept her from achieving her dream in medicine.
Digging up information that includes which Supreme Court justices had been influenced by an unwanted pregnancy helped to give background information to the thinking of some members of the court.
As you can imagine, most of the book is dedicated to the family that Norma came from and the family she produced - 3 daughters who found each other as adults, which brought them comfort as well as confusion and pain. For anyone who does not know, Norma did not have an abortion, she gave the baby up for adoption, she was already too far along when the case was filed to have the procedure, and the filings and hearing before the court took far longer that the remaining 3 months she had before she gave birth.
The majority of the book focuses on Norma, but there is so much information and characters presented that I felt I was living this portion of my life over again. To say that she had a complicated life herself is an understatement, but the insight into her family of origin and the family she created is the crux of the book, along with the politics of the changing times, and the procedure.
Honestly, if you are curious at all about the times and the case, invest a few weeks into reading this.
Puts the current debate, along with the current hysteria, in perspective.
Prager does a stunning job of introducing us to tangential but important figures on both sides of the abortion debate, including Mildred Jefferson, whose fight against abortion seemed to take the place of the fight against racism, the real villain that kept her from achieving her dream in medicine.
Digging up information that includes which Supreme Court justices had been influenced by an unwanted pregnancy helped to give background information to the thinking of some members of the court.
As you can imagine, most of the book is dedicated to the family that Norma came from and the family she produced - 3 daughters who found each other as adults, which brought them comfort as well as confusion and pain. For anyone who does not know, Norma did not have an abortion, she gave the baby up for adoption, she was already too far along when the case was filed to have the procedure, and the filings and hearing before the court took far longer that the remaining 3 months she had before she gave birth.
The majority of the book focuses on Norma, but there is so much information and characters presented that I felt I was living this portion of my life over again. To say that she had a complicated life herself is an understatement, but the insight into her family of origin and the family she created is the crux of the book, along with the politics of the changing times, and the procedure.
Honestly, if you are curious at all about the times and the case, invest a few weeks into reading this.
Puts the current debate, along with the current hysteria, in perspective.
July 11, 2022
I cannot recommend this book enough! It is incredibly well researched with so much new information about Norma McCorvey, the woman who sought an abortion (aka Roe) in the famous Roe v Wade case. It wasn’t until the past few years that I even knew that Norma McCorvey (Roe) never even had an abortion in her lifetime. This book is THICK but it is certainly not dry or boring. It is filled with previously unknown details and extensive stories about Norma McCorvey’s family, her children, her significant others, various abortion providers across the US, influential pro-life advocates, and religious leaders and pro-choice groups who used Norma for their own motives when it was convenient for them. After reading this book it is apparent to me that, in addition to a troubled upbringing and growing up gay in the unforgiving mid-20th century south, Norma probably suffered from some type of mental illness. Nonetheless, despite her often selfish and crude words and actions, I found myself feeling very sorry for her and her daughters too. The close relationship that the author developed with Norma’s family made this book feel more authentic and trustworthy. I felt like I understood the daughters and their distinct personalities and it was interesting to read about how their biological mother’s identity continued (and still continues) to affect their entire lives. I also thought the author did a great job staying unbiased. At the end in the Authors Note he is transparent about whether he is pro-life or pro-choice , but while reading the book it was hard to tell, which I very much appreciated. This book was published in 2021 and now in summer 2022 it is more timely than ever. As I stated at the beginning of this review, I simply cannot recommend it enough!
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