You know that Roe v Wade is the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that invalidated 50 state laws and made abortion legal and available on demand throughout the United States, and that the massive March for Life rallies are held on its anniversary, January 22.

Unless you’re an avid reader in the believosphere (my nickname for Christian news and views online), you may not know that the “Roe” figure in the case name died this weekend of heart failure at age 69.

Her real name was Norma Leah McCorvey (nee Nelson.)

Because Norma renounced her pro-choice past (she was brought to Christ by Rev. Flip Benham, and then to the Catholic Faith by Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life), she became a persona non grata to the lame scream media.

The New York Times threw in a mention of it inside its Saturday edition but you may have to pray to St. Anthony to find it.

Just a few examples of blatant pro-choice slant from that bastion of liberal bias.

• Reporter Robert McFadden (who covers the celebrity obit beat) intones that her death was confirmed by a “New York journalist who’s writing a book about Roe v Wade.” Really? They couldn’t locate Father Pavone, who’s right there in Staten Island? No other pro-life leader who knew her well?
• “She also switched sides, from abortion rights advocate to anti-abortion campaigner.” (Nice linguistic labelling.)
• She also “bitterly attacked Barack Obama when he ran for president and then re-election.” (What — with a butcher knife? While frowning?)
• And then we get the pseudo-objective some observers: “Some observers said she became a pawn used by both sides in the maelstrom of the abortion wars.” (Journalist code for the reporter himself.) Norma McCorvey was used all right, but not by the pro-life side.
• Of course, there’s a casual reference to her being “bisexual but primarily lesbian” – with no mention made of her many public renunciations of her past sexual sins. This NYT piece is Exhibit A of the pressing need for alternative media.

The next generation of pro-lifers is making incredible gains in influencing public opinion about the realities of abortion (start the list with vivid 4D imaging of the unborn baby). We’re winning.

Lent is upon us. Let’s remember Norma in our prayers, and do our part to consign abortion to the scrap heap of history. (I never met this courageous soul, although a phone interview almost came together.)

Let’s keep up the momentum toward the day when that great future Eastertime arrives in which all persons are respected in law no matter how small, no matter how old.

Norma McCorvey, requiescat in pace.