Daughter of 'Jane Roe,' the woman behind the landmark abortion case, comes to terms with her identity
ABC News
Shelley Lynn Thornton, the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey, the woman behind the Roe v. Wade abortion case, speaks to ABC News.
Growing up, Shelley Lynn Thornton said she had a nice childhood with parents who she knew adopted her and took good care of her.
As a teenager, she said her biggest concerns were "shoes and boys." She had no reason to think much beyond herself, until reporters at the National Enquirer revealed her birth identity to her around her 19th birthday in 1989.
Her biological mother, they told her, was Norma McCorvey.
"They'd asked me if I'd ever heard of her before and I said no," Thornton, 51, told ABC News' Linsey Davis in an exclusive interview. "And they said, 'Well, she is the woman who they used to do the Roe versus Wade case. She was Jane Roe.'"
