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The Norma McCorvey I knew.

Read the article from the LA Times about Norma. The article starts with a lie and much of the rest is misleading. Here is my take on what I read. Realize of course, we are being told this story by the LA Times. I have not seen the footage, or the cuts, or edits, or final product. Here is what I know.

When Norma surrendered herself to the love of Christ at the behest of the little girl who witnessed to her – it was real. Norma was honest enough to state that she was not 100% pro-life and was living with her girlfriend. When you are paid to toe the party line, you toe it, and there is no room for personal reservations. I remember this because I defended Norma’s hesitancy to embrace the pro-life position, and her reluctance to leave her lover, on numerous radio shows. I asked listeners to allow God’s grace to heal her and His Holy Spirit to convict and sanctify her.
The article says she was paid by Operation Rescue to be pro-life. I do not know what she might have said or how she might have said it, but I know this for sure: neither Flip Benham, Troy Newman, nor myself paid Norma to be pro-life. Flip tried his best to protect Norma from the glare of the media spotlight for her personal spiritual growth. Yes, she was eventually introduced to the world as a new believer because it is a blessed moment when one that is lost is found and given a new life in Christ. Troy gave her a place to live and showed her only kindness and certainly did not do it for gain. She was a difficult person to have around.

I personally only had times of laughter and joy during the moments we shared together. She stayed at my home with my family and we enjoyed talking with each other. 

Norma may have embraced the pro-life movement because caring Christians gave generously to her to help her with what she called her dream to overturn Roe v. Wade , her namesake abortion case. She may have stayed for the money, but Norma was burdened by the death of millions of babies because of her participation in the legalization of abortion. In a very private moment with Survivors co-founder, Cheryl Conrad, Norma sobbed and said she was so sorry in response to Cheryl’s confession of having aborted her first baby. Clinging tightly and crying together, Norma said she thought all the time of the millions of babies that had died because of her case.

So, I read the article with only sadness for Norma. I don’t know the state of her soul in eternity, but I know this: At one point Norma felt the forgiveness of surrendering her life to Christ and it changed her. I am saddened if her final words reject her pro-life position. She was a woman of great hurts and sorrows. I only look to myself and ponder the great mercies and forgiveness God has given me and pray that her bedside confession was not a denial of her faith, because not being pro-life is not too great a sin to be forgiven by God, through the blood of Jesus Christ.

The saddest commentary in the article is from Rob Schenck. Rob is my friend but has recently recanted his faith as he had lived it. He wrote a book in an attempt to profit off his un-conversion. In it he throws the motives of so many under the bus and does it again in this article with the pronoun “We”. This is his quote: “There were times I wondered: Is she playing us? And what I did not have the guts to say was, because I know damn well, we were playing her.”

No Rob, WE weren’t. WE loved her and are always filled with joy when one surrenders their life for Christ. The WE that generously gave to her self-declared dream of seeing Roe v. Wade overturned, gave because we agreed with and supported her dream. If it was all a lie, that is between her and God, but I believe inside that hurting lady was the saving faith of Christ. It is you, the living Rob Schenck I pray for.

Founder, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust
Following is an email from Fr Frank, truly Norma’s spiritual advisor and confidant.

Dear Colleagues,
 
Understandably, a lot of noise is being made about the upcoming documentary about Norma McCorvey. Here are my thoughts today…
 
Many of us knew her; I was privileged to be by her side for her journey for 22 years, from her baptism in 1995 to the day of her death in 2017 – a day on which we had our final conversation and she urged us all to keep pushing forward in the pro-life cause. I received her into the Catholic Church in 1998, led her through an intense spiritual and psychological healing process from the wounds she incurred in the abortion industry, had thousands of conversations and spent countless hours both in public and in private, for business and pleasure, as did our colleague and my associate Janet Morana.
 
The sacrifices Norma made on this journey of healing are not things you can fake. Her life can’t be summarized in an interview or an article. One had to see the whole pattern, all the ups and downs, to identify her center of gravity. She was wounded and erratic, and yet knew she was a new creation in Christ; she was needful of help and yet fiercely independent, tender of heart and yet capable of fierce anger and rebellion.
 
I don’t know what the interview was that the documentary is touting, or what was said leading up to it. What I do know is that the conversion and commitment, the agony and the joy I witnessed firsthand for 22 years was not a fake. There is 0% chance of that.
 
If anything, what the other side has to face up to is that Norma rejected abortion before she became pro-life. The day before the pro-abortion press conference in which she was first revealed as the “Roe” of Roe v Wade, she told Gloria Allred that she thought abortion was wrong. And while working in abortion clinics, she talked women out of their abortions. If there was any ambiguity, it was about her commitment to pro-choice, not to pro-life.
 
Our movement should take this wave of negative publicity as a chance to get to know Norma better, and to urge America to get to know Roe v Wade better, a policy that not only Norma but America has rejected.

FR. FRANK PAVONE
Priest for Life
Survivors co-founder Cheryl Conrad shares a memory that has stayed with her decades later.

Cheryl states: I first met Norma in Dallas for meetings with Operation Save America, shortly after Norma’s conversion. I was there for her baptism into the faith and heard her profession of faith. After one of the meetings I noticed Norma sitting by herself out in the children’s playground at the church where the meetings were being held. She looked sad and forlorn so I went out and sat on the swing next to her. I didn’t say much, but with downcast eyes Norma began to pour out her heart. She told me she felt responsible for all the children who had died from abortion, children who should have been playing on the playground.

What a terribly heavy burden to bear. I could only offer the true comfort of forgiveness and healing in Christ. I know this forgiveness because Christ has forgiven me for my own abortion so long ago. Norma was forgiven and redeemed by Jesus work on the cross. Still, for Norma, as we sat there on the swings, the emptiness of the playground was her legacy. I know this is something she was burdened with for many years, if not the rest of her life, because many years later she wrote the poem below.  There is NO WAY that someone could write such a poem and not be pro-life!

EMPTY PLAYGROUNDS
by Norma Leah McCorvey , formerly "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade
Tuesday, May 27, 2003

I sit across from a playground that
I visited this eve with a small child.
I know of such places where children play.
I know that I am the cause of them not being here today.
These playgrounds for "innocent children"
now dead because of sins I helped do.
I hope, Lord, that the wonderful playground
is well guarded with angels.
Angels who will protect them keep them happy and safe.
Angels who will make them smile and laugh.
So that when that glorious day comes;
the children will not hold "the sin" against me.
For every time I see a playground empty,
I will know that yours will be full.
The sun is now setting, and my heart hurts, Lord.
For the numbers who from abortion have been torn apart.
I pray you can put them back together and make them whole.
If you like, Lord, use my body
to make your precious children whole again.
I ask you to do this not only for them,
Lord, but also for the love I have for each of them.
Lord, God, you gave your only Son,
and He died and shed His blood for us.
All I did was give my baby away
so that "women could tear theirs apart."
For this I will never be able to look in your face, out of shame.
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SURVIVORS OF THE ABORTION HOLOCAUST
P.O. Box 52708, Riverside, CA 92517 | 951-750-1114 | www.Survivors.LA