Last month, a documentary was released about Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the Roe v. Wade case in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a right to abortion. In it, she claims that she became an anti-abortion activist in the 1990s because she was paid to do so. Needless to say, that shook a lot of people in the anti-abortion movement — like those at the Media Research Center.
Alexa Moutevelis wrote in a May 21 post, before the film was released:
The week, a new documentary alleges that Norma McCorvey, aka “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade, claimed she was paid to convert to the pro-life position in a “deathbed confession.” Those who knew her in the pro-life movement are skeptical and said she always seemed sincere in her beliefs, pointing to two decades’ worth of McCorvey’s pro-life activism as proof. The documentary isn’t even out yet (AKA Jane Roe will be released by FX on Friday) but still pro-abortion activists pounced on the news to indict the entire pro-life movement and Christian right.
She went on to complain that “pro-abortion feminazi” Amanda Marcotte “said [McCorvey’s] original pro-life conversion was met with skepticism from pro-aborts.” In fact, Marcotte did not use the term “pro-abort” anywhere in her piece; that’s a derogatory term anti-abortion activists like Moutevelis use to attack those who support abortion rights.
Moutevelis then dismissed McCorvey’s statements to stay on message: “Whatever McCorvey’s true feelings, the fact remains, abortion is not medical care, it’s the intentional destruction of human life. We don’t need to pay anyone to believe that, embryology textbooks will do just fine.”
The same day — again, before the film was released — Kyle Drennen complained that ABC “hyped” the bombshell claim from McCorvey, going on to attack correspondent Deborah Roberts: “At no point in the segment did Roberts speak to pro-life activists who worked with McCorvey for years or the Catholic priest who helped guide her conversion to the Church and conducted her funeral, all of whom cast doubt on how the documentary portrayed her.” That despite the fact that none of them had seen the film.
The MRC finally got around to reviewing the film in a May 29 post by Rebecca Downs, who predictably panned it because it doesn’t advance her narrative, then attacked its makers: “Live Action News pointed out that the documentary was heavily edited. The producers of the film also have pro-abortion ties.” We remember when the MRC defended editing when anti-abortion activists tried to run a sting operation on Planned Parenthood, to the point where Tim Graham and Brent Bozell declared that “all video is edited.”
Downs tried to spin things by insisting that the it was actually the “abortion movement” that used McCorvey, not her side, with gaslighting asides that “It’s actually the abortion movement doing the exploiting and betraying women.” She concluded by huffing: “Nowhere are the lies from the abortion movement fully examined; pro-lifers are the bad guys. The takeaway of the documentary ought to be how misleading and one-sided the abortion industry is, only further propagated by the pro-abortion media.”
Stated like someone who has to keep the narrative going no matter what.