The eldest daughter of the woman who initially brought the Roe v. Wade case to the Supreme Court said her mother would have been heartbroken by the reversal of the ruling last week.
“My mother would have been devastated,” Melissa Mills, daughter of Norma McCorvey, also known as Jane Roe, told CNN. “Just hard to believe now her grandkids would not have the same rights that she fought for just under 50 years ago.”
Mills said she was stunned after learning of the Supreme Court’s momentous overturning of Roe v. Wade on Friday.
“I was in disbelief,” she said. “I knew it was coming, but it was just too real that it actually happened.”
McCorvey died of heart failure in 2017 at 69.
She became pregnant with her third child and was unable to get an abortion because of Texas laws at the time. McCorvey filed her case anonymously and won a landmark victory that would enshrine abortion rights.
McCorvey eventually became an evangelical Christian and later opposed pregnancy terminations. But in a 2020 documentary, she asserted that she changed her position because she was offered financial assistance to do so.
“New Day” host Brianna Keilar asked her daughter what her primary concerns would be moving forward.
“As a woman, we have to take care of ourselves and sometimes we have to take care of ourselves in that way, and that should be our decision, nobody else’s,” she said. “Nobody, especially not a man.”
Despite last week’s reveral, Mills said she holds her late mother in high regard for waging the pro-choice fight.
“It wasn’t just herself,” she said. “She helped all women.”
