"In Sarah Weddington’s version, the beginning of the conversation between the three women is the same—a discussion of the intended lawsuit— but this point is one of the few areas in which her and McCorvey’s story overlap. Throughout the text, she refers to McCorvey as “Jane Roe,” and only relays that information which had already been made public by McCorvey at the time of the book’s publication (in keeping with lawyer-client confidentiality). It is clear that the autobiography was published shortly after McCorvey publicly retracted her claim of being raped, as Weddington dedicated a paragraph to explaining in detail that McCorvey’s rape claim was never used by the lawyers in their case, reiterating again a few pages later that, in the affidavit McCorvey signed, “there was no mention of how she got pregnant.” While McCorvey was openly identified as a lesbian at this time, Weddington makes no note of her sexuality. The rape claim here is depicted as more of tactical move on McCorvey’s part, as she ponders aloud to her lawyers whether or not being raped would increase the chances of her receiving a legal abortion. Overall, Weddington’s version of the story is crisp and generally unemotional. Though she claimed that McCorvey’s “hard-luck stories touched a sympathetic cord,” her understanding of McCorvey's involvement in the case is framed around the low-level of commitment that would be expected of her. Weddington stated that being the plaintiff required “a minimal amount of time.... she never had to answer written or oral questions for the opposition lawyers. She did not attend any of the court hearings. Second, no money. Linda and I were donating our time, and we were covering the expenses.” Weddington does not seem to fathom the very real burden that McCorvey would have to bear if she became their plaintiff: a child. McCorvey tried her best to avoid this aspect of being the Roe plaintiff. According to her memoir, she asked the lawyers point blank whether or not they knew of a place where she could receive an abortion during their meeting at Colombo’s. Weddington claimed that she did not know, a statement that smarted years later when Weddington revealed that she had had an illegal abortion before even conceiving of the Roe case (not to mention her close relationship with the Austin abortion referral project). While Faux went to great lengths to assure the reader that McCorvey was fully informed of the unlikelihood that she would receive an abortion due to taking on the role of plaintiff in the case, neither Weddington nor McCorvey’s memoirs corroborated this assertion. In Garrow’s account of the case in Liberty and Sexuality, which like Faux’s was based on extensive interviews with Coffee and Weddington, he notes that the two lawyers were “privately thankful” that McCorvey had no choice other than to complete her pregnancy."
Roe v. Wade

January 1, 1970

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English

Sources

pp.19-21

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