When Texas resident Norma McCorvey became pregnant for the third time, she wanted an abortion. At 21, she was already a mother of two, divorced, and nursing multiple addictions. She wasn't able to get one – what she got instead was a crusade pegged to her name.
Or rather, her pseudonym. Designated Jane Roe, McCorvey's case would culminate in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v Wade, which enshrined abortion as a constitutional right in the United States.
In the several years the case took to reach its outcome, she did not attend a single trial.
