"That evening, the two female lawyer and I discussed the case over a few pitchers of beer and pizza at a small restaurant in Dallas. Weddington, Coffee, and I were drinking beer and trying to come up with a pseudonym for me. I had heard that whenever women were having illegal abortions, they wouldn’t carry any identification with them. An unidentifiable woman was often referred to as Jane Doe. So we were trying to come up with something that would rhyme with “Doe”. After three of our pitchers of beer, we started with the letter “a” and eventually reached “r” and agreed on “Roe”. Then I asked, “What about Jane for the first name?” Janie used to be my imaginary friend as a child. I told them about her and how she always wanted to do good things for people, and it was decided – I became Jane Roe, by the stroke of a pen."
Roe v. Wade

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English