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Roe and Doe want cases reversed
Plaintiffs cite fraud in abortion cases
The two women at the center of landmark Supreme Court cases that legalized abortion on demand have asked the federal courts to overturn those decisions.
Norma McCorvey, who was “Jane Roe” in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, said, “My case was wrongfully decided, and has caused great harm to the women and children of our nation.” McCorvey and Sandra Cano-Saucedo, who was “Jane Doe” in the companion case Doe v. Bolton, filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case of Donna Santa Marie, et al v. Christie Todd Whitman, et al. The case is a federal class action suit brought by five women who argue that New Jersey’s abortion laws violate the constitutional rights of women.
“The lawsuit attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade by suing the state of New Jersey, which has one of the most liberal abortion rights laws, and if it succeeds they will attempt to have the case reach the Supreme Court,” said Stephanie Mueller, spokesman for the Washington-based National Abortion Federation.
McCorvey and Cano-Saucedo expressed support for the five women and told a news conference that “we were wrong, and we are trying to overturn that.” After working in abortion clinics for many years, in 1995 McCorvey shocked many by announcing she had become a baptized Christian by pro-life group leader, the Rev. Philip “Flip” Benham, who is the national president of the Texas-based Operation Save America. She became a Catholic in 1998.
Cano-Saucedo says she was pressured by an American Civil Liberties Union attorney in the early 1970s to seek an abortion after her husband was jailed in Georgia and her two children taken away by welfare workers. She said she was opposed to abortion and fled to a grandmother in Oklahoma to avoid the pressure. Cano-Saucedo claims the ACLU lawyer misled the court by saying that she had sought an abortion but was denied by a public hospital. Canos sought to unseal the records of her case and prove that she had not sought an abortion. She added that she does not understand how a Supreme Court decision can still stand, “after the case is proven to be based on lies.”