Original 'Roe' speaks at Denison

I attended McCorvey’s talk last night and was pretty disappointed. I knew the rough outlines of her story (both her 1960s background and 1990s job and religious experiences) and was expecting to hear more along those lines but with detail and passion. Instead, I heard incoherent ramblings and learned nothing. I knew McCorvey was not the most educated person in the world and did not expect a brilliant intellectual performance; but I hoped to be enlightened a little, even just on the specifics of the Roe case or what it’s like to work in an abortion clinic. This is the kind of insider info. one could reasonably expect, but alas.

It was actually quite a bizarre experience. I’ve been to a fair number of “talks” on uni. campuses but never one like this. I expected some pro-choice belligerence but it was actually subdued, for the most part. Certainly not bad enough to warrant security escorting people out on McCorvey’s command. That just added unnecessary tension to whole situation, and I would agree that it alienated most of the audience. The first few questions in the Q&A were quite good but elicited quick answers lacking much thought, esp. a question on whether one has to be Christian to be pro-life. After that it all became too much–really too little–to bare and I drove home.

On the Catholic thing: it was interesting to hear McCorvey describe her faith in language that one usually hears from Fundamentalist Christians, who seem to love her. Not that I have anything against non-Catholic Christians, but one would hope that McCorvey realizes there’s more to being Catholic than just having a personal relationship with the Savior. That said, it was interesting to gauge the audience’s reaction when she stated she was Catholic -and- followed the Church’s teaching on contraception (shock!)–both for the Fundamentalist and the pro-choicers (like the 19-yr old soph. quoted).

Thanks for posting the article. Hopefully others will comment.

MI Catholic-
I didn’t expect a smooth-talking rationalizer, but I did expect a coherent, fair presentation. No knock on Ms. McCorvey, but the event unfortunately reinforced many negative stereotypes of the pro-life movement. Of course, that doesn’t take away from the rightness of pro-life.

Which leads to your other comment about how the matter is unsophisticated. For you and I it is not, but for many others in this country, even our Church, it is. We’re never going to have much success converting them if pro-life events go this way. There are many who do not share our sense of right and wrong on this (and other) matters, and blithely bemoaning their sophistication won’t get us far.

As to Ms. McCorvey being a pawn/goat of the abortionists, that is true, but as my pro-choice friend (who was also there) pointed out, she appears to have become a pawn of the pro-life Fundamentalists now. Here again, no knock on our allies, but that point cuts both ways.

I wholly agree abortion is ugly and sinful and leads to this kind of result, but I think we have to aim for better as Christians.