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A few thoughts on the #AKAJaneRoe story before it premiers tonight, a thread:
(1) One takeaway from this news should NOT be to use Norma one last time to bolster an agenda. Our response should be to honor her life by letting it speak for itself in all its complexity. If we want to truly empower women, her dignity must matter more to us than the story.
(2) Norma McCorvey was a complicated, resilient human with a relentlessly oversimplified story. And the commodification of her story is causing us to miss out on the most convicting elements of her experience:
(3) Norma McCorvey faced unplanned pregnancy with zero support. We need to be talking about how to transform our families, schools, workplaces, and faith communities into spaces where no one faces unplanned pregnancy alone. We need public policy that promotes motherhood too.
(4) Norma McCorvey was a birthmother who was treated with disdain. We need to end the stigma surrounding adoption placement (specifically domestic infant adoption), so that birthmothers are treated with respect and welcomed out of the margins on this issue.
(5) Norma McCorvey was a human rights advocate, who spent time on both sides of the greatest human rights question of our time. We need to be talking about whether preborn humans deserve equal human rights, the core question that no one can ignore.
(6) Norma is one of many who’ve changed their position on abortion and were welcomed into the pro-life movement with outstretched arms—the pro-life movement, with its imperfections, does this, and that’s one of its best qualities. It never gives up on people.
(7) And there’s A LOT more to this story. Watch the documentary with an open mind. Also read @NancyKFlanders well-researched account published today about close friends of Norma’s who were there till the very end. https://www.liveaction.org/news/norma-mccorvey-longtime-friends-set-record-straight/
(8) @annanorthtweets piece is really great work and highly informative as well. https://www.vox.com/2020/5/22/21267493/aka-jane-roe-norma-mccorvey-deathbed-confession
