From Deadline.com:
EXCLUSIVE:Alison Owen and Debra Hayward’s Monumental Pictures is set to bring the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. abortion ruling that paved the way for women to have safe and legal abortions, to the big screen. They’ve tapped writer Jennifer Majka, who co-wrote BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated short The Bigger Picture, to pen the script.
It’s a fitting project to unveil on International Women’s Day: A story about the battle of 26 year-old Sarah Weddington and her journey from a small town Texas lawyer to ushering through the biggest U.S. Supreme Court decision of the century, shepherded by a well-respected and award-winning female production duo and a burgeoning writer.
…
“We are excited and proud to be collaborating with Jen Majka to tell this important story,” said Owen. “It is one that is close to our hearts and hugely important, particularly in the extraordinary times in which we are living. Women’s reproductive freedom is just as contested now as it was before this case and this is a story that everyone should know.”
Hayward adds: “’Roe vs. Wade reshaped the universal conversation on abortion. The time to revisit its history has never felt more apt …”
There’s no indication whether the movie will follow the ongoing story of “Jane Roe,” a k a Norma McCorvey, the original plaintiff in the case, who recently passed away.
From The Washington Post on Feb. 18, 2017:
Norma McCorvey, who was 22, unwed, mired in addiction and poverty, and desperate for a way out of an unwanted pregnancy when she became Jane Roe, the pseudonymous plaintiff in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion, died Feb. 18 at an assisted-living facility in Katy, Tex. She was 69.
Her death was confirmed by Joshua Prager, a journalist working on a book about Roe v. Wade. The cause was a heart ailment.
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By her own description, she was “a simple woman with a ninth-grade education.” She presented herself as the victim of her attorneys, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, whom she accused of exploiting the predicament of her unwanted pregnancy to score a victory for the abortion rights cause.
Roe v. Wade, which became a class-action suit, was a watershed for women in general but irrelevant for Ms. McCorvey in particular. After an initial court victory for her, Texas mounted an appeal that dragged on long past Ms. McCorvey’s due date. By the time the Supreme Court announced its decision, her baby was 2½ years old. She had given the child up for adoption and learned of the ruling in a newspaper article.
McCorvey admittedly had a very difficult and complicated life — included alcohol, drug abuse and same-sex relationships — but in later years, she became an ardent pro-life advocate.
From a Feb. 2013 profile in Vanity Fair:
It is a spring night in rural Texas, and crickets sing as a woman in her 60s with broad shoulders and short brown hair stops a pregnant young woman on an empty sidewalk. The older woman has heard that the younger woman, her neighbor Lucy Mae, may be seeking an abortion. “You don’t have to do this,” she says, her brown eyes and long loose cheeks filling with emotion. “Children are a miracle—a gift from God!”
The women are performing a scene in Doonby, a movie about a drifter who awakens a sleepy Texas town to its spiritual possibilities. The movie, tentatively set to be released this year, is directed by Peter Mackenzie, a Catholic filmmaker from Britain. It stars John Schneider, best known for The Dukes of Hazzard, who is a born-again Christian.
The older woman is born-again, too. Her name is Norma McCorvey. She is not a professional actress. But back when Nixon was president, McCorvey landed the role of a lifetime: that of “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff in what would become one of the most divisive legal actions in American history.
Along the way, McCorvey was baptized, then, in the late 1990s, she took on her mother’s Catholicism. From a post at at the Website of Priests for Life:
“You are soon to be with me.”
The sad story of my days as a pro-choice activist, days that I am happy are long gone, is recounted in the book I am Roe. The marvelous story of my journey to a new life in Christ and the pro-life movement is recounted in the book Won by Love. Now it is time to add a new chapter to the story of my life, because God had more in store for me even after He made me 100% pro-life and washed me in the waters of baptism.
He wanted me to “come home,” a message that scared me at first, because I did not know what it meant. I kept having this feeling, this vision that someone was taking to me. I finally got to the point to where I was afraid to go to sleep because this kept coming to me in dreams. The message I heard God telling me was, “My child, you’re soon to be with me.” I though I was going to die! Then one day in my car it became crystal clear what I should do — become Catholic! I told our Heavenly Father, “Oh, I can do that! Not a problem!” And this is the story of how that came to pass.
It’ll be interesting to see if any of this postscript to the Roe v. Wade decision makes it into the movie.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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