Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160061
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I have seen McCorvey interviewed many times. In each instance her countenance and words reflected anger, bitterness, cynicism, pain and sarcasm about the pro-life movement. But last Thursday on ABC's ``Nightline,'' a different McCorvey appeared. Dressed nicely, her hair styled and wearing a cross around her neck, McCorvey displayed an inner peace that can be explained only by using a theological concept: She has been converted.
People in the pro-choice movement expressed shock and offered worldly explanations for her change of heart. Her attorney, Sarah Weddington, whom McCorvey accused of lying to her about the availability of abortion (she said Weddington had had one in Mexico, but didn't want to share the information with her because it would have hurt Weddington's legal case), said, ``The opposition is going to be using this from a PR perspective.'' Look who's talking!
McCorvey said she was the one who was used by the pro-choicers, including Weddington. ``I wasn't good enough for them,'' she said. ``You know, I'm a street kid. I can't really remember a pro-choice person here in Texas ever calling me and saying, `Good morning, Norma, are you having any trouble in your life?'''
Others, including attorney Gloria Allred and pro-choice activist Kate Michelman, suggested that McCorvey was attracted to the pro-life side because they paid attention to her. But that explanation is too shallow. They don't understand the power of information and of genuine love for another person, regardless of their views. And they are terrified of the political implications of fully disclosing to women details of the abortion procedure and the many alternatives to having one. If pro-choicers had nothing to fear, they wouldn't hide the grisly operation behind guarded abortion-clinic doors. In an interview with Fort Worth radio station WBAP, McCorvey said that while she was employed by a Dallas abortion clinic, she had to ``drink [herself] to sleep at night'' in order to forget what she saw each day. She was most troubled, she said, by a freezer packed with dead aborted babies. One day while looking at empty swings at a local playground, she thought, ``Oh my God, the playgrounds are empty because there's no children, because they've all been aborted.''
The key person in McCorvey's conversion was the Rev. Flip Benham, the leader of Operation Rescue Dallas. Benham, whose office was next door to the abortion clinic where McCorvey worked, developed a relationship with her. Both had had troubled pasts, and this is what connected them. He won her over, not with harsh rhetoric, but by treating her as a valuable person. Is there a lesson here for those pro-lifers who believe that confrontation, even violence, is the only way to stop abortion? One hardens hearts; the other can change them. Some point out that McCorvey still approves of abortion in a few cases, and that the lesbian relationship she has had for two decades with her roommate will not sit well with her new friends on the pro-life side. But give her time. She's been abused in the past and used in the present, but her future looks bright as she claims a promise from that Book the Rev. Flip Benham shared with her: ``If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.'' That's the best explanation for what has happened to Norma McCorvey.
Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB