Norma McCorvey, (“Jane Roe”) With Her Lawyer Outside the Supreme Court
Roe v. Wade
The winter wind clawed at the windows of St. Mary’s Hospital in Detroit, making them rattle like old bones. Nurse Evelyn Carter, twelve years into her career, sat in the tiny break room with a cup of lukewarm coffee, rubbing her temples. The morning shift had already brought in three emergency cases, but that wasn’t what weighed on her.
It was the memory of last night’s patient—a girl barely nineteen, pale as paper, found bleeding in a basement bathroom after a desperate, botched operation.
Evelyn closed her eyes. How many more? How many years of this?
The door creaked open. Dr. Matthews entered, coat still dusted with snow. His expression looked strangely charged—some mix of tension, disbelief, and something like relief.
“Evelyn,” he said, catching his breath. “Have you seen the news?”
She shook her head. “Not since 5 a.m. Why? Something happen?”
He held up the small hospital radio. “The Supreme Court… they just ruled on Roe v. Wade.”
Evelyn sat up straighter. “Already? What did they—?”
“They struck down the Texas law,” he said. “They ruled that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Across the country.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The hum of the fluorescent lights was the only sound.
Evelyn felt her throat tighten. “So… women won’t have to go crawling into dark alleys anymore? No more coat hangers? No more underground ‘midwives’ with kitchen tools?” Her voice cracked. “No more girls dying on those tables?”
Dr. Matthews nodded slowly. “If states comply—and they will have to—we can offer safe procedures here. Legally. Openly. With anesthesia, with sterile equipment. With dignity.”
Evelyn pressed a trembling hand to her lips. All those years. All the times she’d watched young women whisper apologies to loved ones who weren’t there, all the times she’d washed blood from her shoes before going home.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “I never thought I’d see this day.”
Dr. Matthews gave a half-smile. “Plenty of people out there aren’t happy about it. There’s going to be backlash. But today… today is different.”
A voice called from the hallway. “Evelyn! We need you in Room 204!”
She froze—the instinct to work snapping back into place. “What’s going on?”
“Complications from last night’s case,” the voice answered.
Evelyn and Dr. Matthews exchanged a look. Then she said, softly but firmly, “This is the last generation of girls we’re going to treat for this. After today, the next nineteen-year-old won’t have to hide in a basement bathroom.”
He nodded, and they rushed down the hall.
Inside the dim hospital room, the girl from the night before lay weak but alive. Evelyn checked her pulse, adjusted her IV, and murmured, “You’re safe now.”
The girl’s eyelids fluttered. “Am I… in trouble?”
Evelyn swallowed. “No, honey. Not anymore. The world is changing today.”
The girl gave a faint nod, as if she didn’t fully understand but felt the comfort in the words.
When Evelyn stepped back into the hallway, Dr. Matthews joined her again. “You all right?”
“No,” she said honestly, wiping her eyes. “But for the first time… I think we might be heading toward something better.”
Outside, snow kept falling—quiet, steady, almost cleansing. And for the first time in a very long time, Evelyn felt like the country had finally opened a door that should never have been closed.
As the morning wore on, the hospital buzzed with a strange mix of confusion and whispered excitement. Nurses gathered near the bulletin board, trading scraps of information they’d heard from the radio in the ambulance bay.
“Seven-to-two decision,” one whispered.
“I heard Justice Blackmun wrote it.”
“They’re saying it’s based on privacy rights—same as the Griswold case.”
“Do you know how many women we lost last year alone? Hundreds.”
Evelyn listened quietly. She remembered the numbers from a recent nursing conference: before legalization in states like New York and California, illegal abortions accounted for nearly 17% of all deaths related to pregnancy. Some years, whole wards were filled with women suffering from infections, perforated uteruses, toxic shock.
She had lived that reality.
Later, in the cafeteria, the small black-and-white television was turned to CBS. Walter Cronkite’s voice filled the room:
“The Supreme Court today handed down a decision legalizing abortion during the first three months of pregnancy…”
Around the room, forks paused midair. A few older doctors scowled. A younger nurse silently pressed her hands together, as if in prayer.
Evelyn felt her chest tighten—not with fear this time, but with relief she hadn’t allowed herself to hope for.
She leaned over to Dr. Matthews. “Did you know New York’s been performing legal procedures for two years already? Women travel from all over the country. Tens of thousands.”
He nodded. “And their mortality rates dropped to near zero.”
Evelyn stared at the TV. “Now we can do the same. No more lost mothers. No more secret funerals.”
In the afternoon, she visited the nineteen-year-old again. A social worker sat beside the bed, explaining the new ruling gently, carefully, making sure the girl knew she wasn’t a criminal.
When the girl turned to Evelyn, there was a new steadiness in her voice.
“So girls like me… we won’t have to do this anymore?”
Evelyn smoothed her hair. “Not if we can help it.”
As she walked back toward the nursing station, she passed a stack of newspapers just delivered to the lobby. The headline, still cold from outside, blared:
SUPREME COURT LEGALIZES ABORTION NATIONWIDE
She rested her hand on the stack, letting the moment settle into her bones. She knew battles were coming—lawsuits, protests, angry letters—but she also knew the quiet truth underneath:
Tonight, somewhere in America, there would not be a girl dying on a basement floor.
And that mattered more than anything.
Historical Synopsis
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, dramatically reshaping reproductive rights in the United States. The case began when “Jane Roe”—a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman who sought to terminate a pregnancy—challenged the state’s abortion laws, which permitted abortion only to save the life of the mother. She argued that these restrictions violated her constitutional rights.
In a 7–2 decision, the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protects a constitutional right to privacy, and that this right is “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The ruling established a trimester framework:
during the first trimester, the government could not regulate abortion beyond requiring that the procedure be performed by a licensed physician,
during the second trimester, regulations were permissible to protect maternal health,
and in the third trimester, states could restrict or prohibit abortion except where necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
The decision invalidated numerous state laws banning or severely limiting abortion and immediately expanded access to safe, legal medical care across the country. Roe also intensified national debate over reproductive rights, shaping political platforms, activism, and legislation for the next five decades. The ruling stood as binding precedent until June 24, 2022, when it was overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
This story is based on documented historical records and contemporaneous accounts
Works Cited
Garrow, David J. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. University of California Press, 1998.
Greenhouse, Linda, and Reva B. Siegel. “Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions About Backlash.” Yale Law Journal, vol. 120, no. 8, 2011, pp. 2028–2087.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
Siegel, Reva B. “Roe’s Roots: The Relationship Between Griswold and Roe.” Boston University Law Review, vol. 90, no. 6, 2010, pp. 1875–1895.
Wood, Mary. “Norma McCorvey and the Making of Roe.” Smithsonian Magazine, Jan. 2013.