"Considering the symbolic role that both McCorvey and the Roe case have played in the abortion debate, the scant historical writing on McCorvey in histories of Roe and the subsequent escalation of the abortion debate is surprising. While her central role has not been forgotten, it has not been the subject of intensive historical inquiry in the four decades since Roe was decided. McCorvey (as Jane Roe) makes an early appearance in James C. Mohr’s Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900 (1978). This legal history tracks the evolution of abortion as a tacitly accepted practice at the turn of the nineteenth century to a staunchly forbidden one in the early 1900s. Mohr uses the recent Roe decision as the centerpiece of the afterword in the text, examining the ways in which the decision undid much of the legal reasoning which he charts in the text which precedes this section. Mohr mentions Jane Roe fleetingly, a decision which is justified by his assertion that “the basic outlines of the Roe case are well-known.” The information he does provide—that the plaintiff was an unwed mother in Texas who sued the Dallas District Attorney in 1970—is accurate but reflective of the minimal information known about McCorvey in the public sphere at this time."