The Daily - The Story of Roe v. Wade, Part 2: The Culture Wars (From the Archive)

Episode Date: May 7, 2022

Today, we revisit a two-part series that first ran in 2018 about the history of Roe v. Wade and the woman behind it.Almost 50 years ago, when the Supreme Court first ruled that women had the constitutional right to an abortion, it was met with little controversy.In Part 2, we asked: How, then, did abortion become one of the most controversial issues of our time?Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, co-host of The Daily. As a correspondent in 2018, she reported on the story of Roe v. Wade.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading:Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade who became a divisive icon for both sides of the abortion debate, died in 2017 at the age of 69.What would the end of Roe mean? Here are some key questions and answers.For more information on today's episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bilbaro. This is The Daily. With the Supreme Court now poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, we revisit part two of a series that first ran in 2018 about the history of that case. in 2018 about the history of that case. Today, Sabrina Tabernisi explains how the 1973 ruling, which initially triggered little controversy, eventually became one of the most polarizing decisions of our time. It's Saturday, May 7th. Why don't you give us some solid answers to our questions? You're going to take women, you're going to drag women out of this hearing whose lives

are at stake. That's a fine way to run something. We, tonight, became the greatest new force in politics for basic political and social change of the 70s, and the greatest such force such force perhaps this nation has ever seen. We're saying that women have a fundamental right to control their own bodies and to control their own lives. So this issue really becomes a lightning rod. It's really out there on the national stage at this point. And it's an issue that's noticed by a political operative in Washington named Paul Weyrich. God gave us a purpose. God put us here for some reason. Everything that we do here is aimed at the next world or it ought not to be done. He's a Republican. He's a conservative Catholic from Wisconsin. And he's really associated with

a lot of the beginnings of the new right in the 1960s and 70s. He is really frustrated that the only think tanks in Washington are these very liberal ones like Brookings. So he goes around really forming the kind of ideas and intellectual groundwork for what would become the conservative movement. With money from the Coors family, that's the beer guys, he starts the Heritage Foundation. He does training for many conservatives we now know today. Newt Gingrich was somebody who had training from him. So he knows that there's this vast, untapped resource, really the only one left in the voting public, and that is evangelicals. And he spent a lot of time thinking how to involve them in politics.

These people are Protestants. They're quite religious. They have conservative values. And they didn't really take part in politics very much. They may have voted, but they weren't an organized political bloc. And he wants to change that. We have been counseling with some of the pastors on how the mechanics of voter registration, on whether or not they can do it in their church, or if they can't, how they can do it.

So the one means to reach them is through the churches. So he tries a lot of things. He takes on issues like pornography. He tries to get them interested and fired up over different issues, and nothing really seems to work. fired up over different issues and nothing really seems to work. But in the late 1970s, something happens that changes things. It takes hold in the evangelical community and really, really electrifies it. The IRS starts to revoke tax-exempt status for church-run Christian schools all over the South. So these are schools that kind of sprung up after desegregation started.

They're run by churches, and they're sort of nicknamed segregation academies. They've been pushing and pushing, and now they want in. Well, they ain't gonna come in. We got our right. Damn. Not here, not now, not ever. They ain't gonna be in my grandson's class. Not here they ain't. And who's gonna stop them?

You all talk so fine. Never, never, never. But it's now, and they're here. There are places that families and congregants of evangelical churches in the South start to send their kids once desegregation starts. So these schools were a way for Christian families to essentially maintain segregation. Essentially, yes. And that's why the IRS was going after them.

Basically, the IRS tells them, look, if you're going to discriminate on the basis of race, you really can't have tax exempt status. So we're going to change things. And this is kind of like a real wake up call for evangelicals. And they've been a pretty insular community, not really taking part in politics. It's time now for the Old Time Gospel Hour with Jerry Falwell, pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. We are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. They've tried to wall themselves off from the outside culture, which they see as sort of in various stages of decay. And this federal government intervention really shakes them.

If we expect for this country to survive, to continue as a healthy nation and a leader, the leader in the family of nations, we must now step up our efforts to return this country to moral sanity. We must do it with all the energies we have. You have Jerry Falwell, who's talking about it in speeches around the country. Jim Baker and Pat Robertson, two evangelical preachers, bring school activists onto their television shows. It's really making a big splash. I am convinced that no matter how much heat we take,

we are right. We are absolutely right. So Weirich sees this, and he feels like Falwell and evangelicals are the key to this. So he meets with Falwell in 1979 and basically tells him that there's a moral majority out there on our side. And then, my friends, we will truly see a moral majority in America. May God bless you. And the account that many people have is that Falwell says, that's exactly what it is.

That's what we're going to call this thing. And they actually found something, a formal organization called the Moral Majority in 1979. It's going to be the organizing center of bringing evangelicals into the political system, of organizing them, of getting them out there and voting. During the 1980s, preachers, we have a threefold primary responsibility. Number one, get people saved. Number two, get them baptized. Number three, get them registered to vote. So when the school issue really brings evangelicals out of their slumber, kind of electrifies them politically,

abortion is something he puts right at the top of the list when he meets with Falwell. Is it wrong to speak from the pulpit about moral and social issues? Now the liberal preachers had never had a problem with that. He thinks it's the one thing that can really unite Catholics and Protestants. We feel today that we are participating in the murder of the unborn to vote for anyone who is not totally opposed to this biological holocaust. This is the issue that really can make a real difference in the American political system in favor of conservatives.

If you and I were allowed to write the blueprint for America for the remainder of the 20th century, what would be that manifesto? What would be that vision? Right at the top of the list, and I believe it's God's priority as well, we would have to return America to respect for the dignity of human life. It must be the front burner item in everything that we're doing. I'm speaking of abortion. And if I could get a modification of Roe v. Wade that stopped all the convenience abortions, I'd be willing to do that. And the feminists don't like that. So two things are going on here.

The feminist movement is taking up abortion as an issue of women's rights. And at the same time, the evangelical movement is taking up abortion as an issue of restoring morality that they think has been lost in the country. Right. These two movements are kind of hurtling toward each other. And in the process, that is forging our modern political landscape. So you have Weyrich, really the visionary here, making the argument that abortion is going to be the big uniting making the argument that abortion is going to be the big uniting issue.

And you have a presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan. This is a man whose time has come. A strong leader with a proven record. Who you remember from 1967 signed quite a liberal abortion bill for the state. Understanding that this is a critical constituency for him. The time is now for strong leadership. Reagan for president. How much consideration are you going to give to the advice of these new conservative organizations and the moral majority and people like the Reverend Jerry Falwell? I am going to be open to these people. He buys what Weirich is saying and what Falwell. I am going to be open to these people.

He buys what Weirich is saying and what Falwell is doing. And he starts courting evangelicals aggressively. And one of the things he's telling them to persuade them is that he's against abortion. He thinks it's wrong. Tells them he really regrets his 1967 decision, that abortion is a big, important issue for him. He's pro-life.

There's one individual who's not being considered at all. That's the one who's being aborted. And I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born. He's unequivocal about it in a way that previous Republicans had always hedged, had always kind of stepped away from characterizing it that bluntly. Ronald Reagan takes it head on. Is an unborn child a human being? I happen to believe it is. And it works. I consider the trust that you have placed in me sacred

and I give you my sacred oath that I will do my utmost to justify your faith. Evangelicals vote for Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly. And the politics there, and the partisan politics there, are really the beginning of the modern American political system as we understand it today. This is the moment when party affiliation starts...

To mean something definitive in the abortion debate. Republicans against Democrats for. Exactly. After Reagan took office into the 1980s, abortion really became this very hot button issue. It was the culture wars. The protests and the divisions become much worse. And there's a very strong movement on the anti-abortion side to try to show Americans what abortion is, to persuade them in a grassroots way. And in an effort to do that, they made this movie called The Silent Scream.

It came out in 1984, and it was trying to show people exactly what abortion looked like. My name is Bernard N. Nathanson. I'm a physician practicing obstetrician and gynecologist. And I think I've had a passing experience in matters of abortion. Using ultrasound technology that was relatively new at the time. It's a moving picture. It has color. The whole story has changed since the 1970s.

Now, for the first time, we have the technology to see abortion from the victim's vantage point. It made a big impression, really hits a nerve. A lot of people wrote about it, and Ronald Reagan talked about it personally. The question of abortion grips our nation. Abortion is either the taking of a human life or it isn't. And if it is, and medical technology is increasingly showing it is, it must be stopped. It was distributed to every single member of Congress. And tonight, I ask you and the Congress to move this year on legislation to protect the unborn. The tactics become much tougher.

Recent attacks on abortion clinics all over the country have prompted the House to open hearings on the problem. And the battle lines are really, really drawn. The mood in the House hearing room was heated today. An angry Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder lambasted abortion foe Joseph Scheidler. I have had two children. I have lost two children. And it is not an easy thing for me to talk about. Then you should be pro-life instead of defending the killer. I am pro-life, sir, but I could be in a very threatening situation if I were pregnant again.

And I resent your sitting there saying to me that women just deal with this lightly. I never said that. Well, you are imp there saying to me that women just deal with this lightly. I never said that. Well, you are implying that, sir. And it's a really fraught time in the abortion movement. The most celebrated anti-abortion protests have been abortion clinic bombings. There's starting to be violence against clinics. Today, Scheidler, the executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, defended the bombings. No one has been killed or injured in the attacks on abortion facilities, but thousands of human lives are destroyed inside these buildings every day.

There are murders of doctors. While standing in his kitchen in Amherst, New York, Dr. Slapian was shot by a high-powered rifle fired through his window. Sadly, this was not the first such shooting. There were others. Over the summer, about 20 clinics in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas were attacked with acid. It's outrageous that somebody can be assassinated for something they have the constitutional right to do. It's a very risky time for people in abortion clinics, and Norma is there right at the heart of it. We must link arm in arm to protect and uphold the right to safe and legal abortion. Norma is working at an abortion clinic in Dallas, and she starts there about 10 years after Roe. And she works as a telephone operator. She's taking calls from women from all over the state.

She's also keeping her connections to the feminist world. She occasionally goes out and speaks at hearings in Washington. She spent some time in California with a very well-known feminist lawyer, Gloria Allred. She was a poster child, but she felt really uncomfortable in that world. I'm sorry, Norma, you said in passing a moment ago that you felt you had already been used too much. Used by whom? To what end? Even though that world wanted to elevate her. Well, I've been shunned by quite a few of the national leaders in the pro-choice movement. To me, sometimes I really get this really strong hit that people think that I'm just like totally stupid and and

I'm not I mean I have I've got brains and I have ideas and I just don't really feel like they hear me she makes constant references in her book to feeling looked down on by them feeling like they have these elite vassar phd educ, and she was a high school dropout. And, I mean, I'm not that vassar quality, you know. I'm a street kid. I'm an ex-alcoholic. I'm an ex-drug dealer. I'm an ex-drug addict. You know, so, I mean, I wasn't their chosen one to be their special Jane Roe.

She feels that they're embarrassed by her. They just never gave me the respect that I thought that I deserved. So even though these people are championing her cause, she doesn't feel at peace with them. No, she feels very looked down on by them. She feels used. Let me explain to you this other way, Ted. And back in 1969, I wanted to have an abortion. I saved up my rent money.

I went to an illegal abortion clinic here in Dallas, Texas. went to an illegal abortion clinic here in Dallas, Texas. She described a scene meeting with Coffey and Weddington much further into her pregnancy in which they told her that it would probably be too late for her to actually get an abortion by the time the case was decided. And she becomes enraged and says, look, I want to have an abortion. That's all I care about. And she realizes that all along they've sort of known that probably this case would not help her or Norma get an abortion. And she has this kind of rant in the book about these fancy women who all of themselves and their rich friends could have had many, many abortions. And that was all I wanted. That was the reason why she signed all of these complicated papers and talked to these women at Colombo's Pizza in Dallas. But what actually ends up happening is that they go on and bring

her case to the Supreme Court, in her mind, to their greater glory, and leave her behind. Then something kind of strange happens. There's a pastor who moves in next door, right next door to the abortion clinic where Norma works. And he's running something called Operation Rescue. Are you the rescue people? You betcha. What's going on this morning? We're rescuing

babies as we love to do. Yes? Yes, because abortion is murder. That's why we do this, because abortion is murder. The group's mantra is, if you think abortion is killing, then act like it. No choice, come to me. No choice, come to me. I'll do it. I don't care. I don't care about women's rights. It has quite radical, but largely peaceful tactics. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Protesters lying down on the street in front of clinics, handcuffing themselves to doors of clinics, going limp and having to be carried away by police, blockading clinics, kind of a new chapter in the anti-abortion

strategy. I mean, what are the chances that this evangelical pastor would move right next door to Norma's abortion clinic? Was that deliberate? So in most places that was deliberate, and it probably was in this case too. At first she was very angry and couldn't believe that they had the nerve

to move right next door. But within a short period of time, she started to become friendly with the head of the operation. His name was Philip Benham. She called him Flipper, and he called her Miss Norma. And they started to become pretty chummy. They even went on television together once,

and newspapers started to write about how there was this strange friendship developing between the poster child of Roe v. Wade and a minister for Operation Rescue. Everybody was really puzzled by it. I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And then in 1995, shocking everybody, she converts. This was the kind of conversion the pro-life movement has been praying for. She becomes a born-again Christian. And Flip baptizes her in the swimming pool in the backyard of one of his congregants.

This was the woman whose name is as familiar as any in the land, the embodiment of the pro-choice cause. And this creates a huge uproar. A Texas pro-life association said memorably that the poster child just leapt off the poster. She joins the pro-life movement. Most of you won't recognize me or my real name. It's Norma McCorvey. I'm also known as Jane Roe, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, Roe versus Wade. And she is a trophy for that movement. I mean, she was the poster child, and suddenly they have her. She's renounced abortion. She thinks it's wrong. However, upon knowing God, I realized that my case, which legalized abortion on demand, was the biggest mistake of my life.

And she goes on a crusade to stop it. She gives speeches. She goes around the country. She takes part in protests. speeches. She goes around the country. She takes part in protests. Well, I came here to show my support for life and to get arrested along with all the other saints. And I asked Mr. Obama to help me overturn Roe v. Wade yesterday. I don't know if you got the message, though. She protests President Obama when he's going to give a commencement speech at Notre Dame. You know she's a Catholic. Even goes to the Senate to protest his Supreme Court choice, Sonia Sotomayor.

She gets arrested and dragged out of the chamber for shouting when a senator was speaking. God bless you, Norma. We're praying for you, sister. Thank you, Norma, for standing up for the baby. Does she explain why she makes this extraordinary conversion? So basically, over the years, as she recounts in her second book, she starts feeling a deep, big sadness that she attributes to supporting abortion. She talks about how she suddenly starts to hear the sound of children's feet

pitter-pattering through the clinic after it's closed after hours. She hears the sound of a child's laugh as she tries to cut the flowers outside to put in the recovery room. And she starts feeling that someone out there in the universe is trying to tell her something. All of the sadness throughout her life, that's actually about abortion. She comes to regret that choice and her role in the movement. And she says it's God that helped her see that. And she starts talking to Flip. And she seems to get something from him that she's not getting from

the women she knows in the pro-choice movement. He owned a bar and he had drinking problems. He was flawed in a way that she understood. She says at one point that they wanted her so that they could change something for everybody else and kind of ignored her as a person. Whereas Flip, who becomes her friend, wants her just for herself, not for the movement. Someone in feminist circles after this happened, and feminist circles, by the way,

didn't really have much of a reaction. They kind of just shrugged it off. But someone said this is some way that she can use the system in the way that the system had used her. Does it occur to you that you may also be being used now by the Operation Rescue people for their purposes? No, sir. And I will not let them use me. When these people from Operation Rescue call me at home now, they don't say, hey, Norma, I want you to come down to the office, or hey, Norma, we're having a fundraiser.

You know, you can get in, and we're going to introduce you. We're going to acknowledge the fact that you're there, you know. But we don't want you to speak because you're a loose cannon, you know, and we don't want really loose cannons around, but we really do need you there because you're Jane Roe, and we don't have any other choice. So go figure. You're saying that's the way you were used by the pro-choice movement? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, Norman McCorvey, I wish you that peace and tranquility that you clearly want.

Thank you. And I thank you very peace and tranquility that you clearly want. And I thank you very much for being with us this evening. Thank you very much. I appreciate you. Thank you. Sabrina, do we know if she ever felt a real allegiance to either side of this fight that she came to symbolize? So, it doesn't really seem like she did. The people on the religious right, toward the end of her life, they were disenchanted with her and disappointed as well.

Norma died of heart failure last year in February. She was 69. But neither side of the debate really claimed her. She'd been lifted up as a symbol and they'd just kind of forgotten about. In some ways, in the same way that the issue of abortion itself was. It was something that ended up becoming a much bigger political fight about power and what the nation would look like in the future.

And in some ways, that makes sense. Abortion is deeply personal for many people. It's a matter of life and death. But it was also used in politics. It gets used in the culture wars as this weapon that both sides are using to attack the other. That's kind of Norma's story too. She's used.

In a way, she was just kind of a token of this movement, of both sides. And a lot of that had to do with her class, how she came into the world, her station in life, her background. In a way, she was a casualty of these culture wars. She ended up kind of flinging herself headlong toward either side at different parts of her life, but never really fitting in.

And in the end, not claimed by either. And somehow, her story, the story of Norma, kind of got lost. People don't really know her name. They only know Ro, the symbol, her pseudonym, Roe v. Wade, the case that changed the country. Sabrina, did Norma end up having the baby in the end? She did.

It was a girl. And she was whisked away for adoption before Norma could ever see her. She writes this. All my life I have tried to do my best. The problem, as I try to understand it, is that I do not fit many people's idea of historical role model. For one thing, I am not a gentle woman or a sophisticated one. Unlike many of the women I admire,

I have not been able to spend a lifetime thinking of big issues or political strategies or many times even what I am going to do the next day or hour or minute. I would like to be that kind of woman, but I am not. Instead, I am a rough woman, born into pain and anger and raised mostly by myself, married to a man who beat me when I was pregnant. I have sought out and pulled close to bad people, and I have lashed out and pushed away the people who love me. I have a bad temper, and oftentimes, at the worst times, I lose it. I am my own worst enemy. I've had three children, but two of them, for better or for worse, are unknown to me.

Of my many sorrows, this is without a doubt the worst. This episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison and edited by Lisa Tobin and Paige Cowan. It was engineered by Chris Wood and Dan Powell. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.