The wheels of justice turn slowly, and by the time the Supreme Court decided that Norma McCorvey (aka “Jane Roe”) was entitled to an abortion, Shelley Lynn Thornton (photo, right) was 3 years old.
Thornton never met her mother, who died in 2017. She was given up for adoption three days after birth and raised by another family. For two decades, neither they nor she knew she’d been the child at the center of Roe v. Wade.
Now 51, and a mother of three children, she describes herself as neither pro-life nor pro-choice, but says, “I guess I don’t understand why it’s a government concern.”
For Thornton, her personal history isn’t about abortion, but being an unwanted child. Years later, her mother tried to contact her, but she felt conflicted about seeing her, even when McCorvey was dying in a hospital.
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