Shelley Lynn Thornton: The Woman at the Heart of Roe v. Wade’s Legacy

Shelley Lynn Thornton, born on June 2, 1970, is the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey, famously known as “Jane Roe” in the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade. Also referred to as the “Roe Baby,” Thornton’s identity remained unknown to the public until 2021, and she is a central figure in the ongoing discussion surrounding reproductive rights in the United States.

Shelley Lynn Thornton was born at the Dallas Osteopathic Hospital in Texas and was only three days old when she was adopted by Ruth Schmidt and Billy Thornton, a couple from Texas. Thornton was just a toddler — around two-and-a-half years old — when the Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion, was issued. She went on to graduate from Highline High School in 1988 and attended secretarial school.

Her biological mother, Norma McCorvey, first reached out to her in 1989, when Thornton was a teenager living near Seattle. Despite their contact, it would take several years before Thornton would meet her half-sisters, Melissa and Jennifer, McCorvey’s other daughters. Although they spoke on the phone, Thornton and McCorvey never met in person. Thornton later shared that she had no regrets about not meeting her birth mother.

In March 1991, Thornton married Doug, a man from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and…