"McCorvey’s ideological conversion is all the more fascinating as it was not an isolated incident. Roe v. Wade was tried in the Supreme Court alongside another case, Doe v. Bolton, the product of lawyer Margie Pitts Hames’s crusade against what she referred to as Georgia’s “cumbersome, costly, and time consuming” abortion restrictions.1 Like Roe v. Wade, Hames and the legal team behind Doe v. Bolton protected their pregnant plaintiff by assigning her a pseudonym: “Mary Doe.” “Mary Doe,” whose real name was Sandra Cano (then Sandra Bensing, later also referred to as Sandra Bensing-Cano), was, like McCorvey, a white woman living in poverty. Estranged from her abusive husband, she had already given birth to two children whom she lost custody of when they were toddlers. Neither Cano nor McCorvey ever testified or appeared in court, but their affidavits were central documents in their respective cases. In 1989, eight years before McCorvey’s conversion, Cano became an activist with Operation Rescue. Additionally, she claimed that she never wanted an abortion, but rather, had been duped by Hames and forced to sign the affidavit without understanding its significance. While both women became icons of the pro-life movement, there is another key divide between them. As Roe became synonymous with legalized abortion, McCorvey’s story would become a matter of public fascination for decades, while Cano’s life would be nearly forgotten. Both contributed to public discourse on abortion, but where McCorvey’s appearances and actions have left behind a rich archive, Cano has left mere breadcrumbs. Regardless, both have largely gone ignored by feminist scholars and historians, turned into footnotes in a history that could not have happened without them."
Roe v. Wade

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English

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pp.vii-viii

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade