The Family Roe: An American Story

Joshua Prager has accomplished the most thoroughly-investigated project and yet painted a most compassionate and intimate portrait of the woman behind the most consequential Supreme Court decision of the Modern Age. Roe v Wade may have been a decision based on Constitutional philosophy, but it was brought forward to history because of a woman whose life and moral constitution was too unraveled and disordered to bring a new life into this world. She wanted an abortion. A legal one. And yet she did bring that life into the world, a child who is today in her early 50's.Without bringing judgement down upon Norma McCorvey's head, Prager went to extraordinary lengths to detail the tangled web of her lies, her misjudgements, her blatant disregard fo her own life and many other self-destructive behaviors. But Prager also looked with compassion and understanding about the sins against her--how she was brought into this life, how she lived it and how she left it. It is not my inclination to cry over the facts contained in a non-fiction book, but this one will drive you to tears. I'm sure Prager himself was in a similar emotional condition in many stages of his research and interviews with McCorvey and with the cast of characters that occupied her life.Prager traced the entire course of McCorvey's life and even back into her ancestry, and he brought her story into the reader's mind and heart in many of its most personal dimensions. No matter which way you believe about the matter of abortion on demand, the story of this woman's life will affect you, and hopefully sway you not to change your conviction about the Constitutional right for a woman to choose how she treats her body and her unborn child, but it may very definitely change your conviction about how you feel about the woman whose demand for an abortion was brought before the highest court in the land this most revolutionary decision...and division among Americans from that day in January 1973 and for the rest of US history.McCorvey's life, of course, does not end with her death. She gave birth to three daughters, the last of which was the life she wished to terminate in the womb. Prager follows their stories as well, and he does not faint from discussing the attitude of the daughter McCorvey attempted to abort. Unsurprisingly, and after the more than 50 years in this world, her attitude has been neither charitable nor forgiving.Without discussing it, Prager brings up a larger issue in his book as well. Eugenics is not new to US culture. Various forms of it have been practiced by most civilizations since ancient times. Moral justifications or condemnations for its practice wil be debated and discussed well after the demise of the United States. What is new and unique about Roe v Wade is that one of its methods (abortion) has been formally accepted by the government and have even been funded by US tax dollars in this and other forms that control the way in which children are or are not brought into this world. This, disagreement about the value of a human life, is what is tearing us apart.Prager's book brings flesh and blood (literally) into that debate, that and the tragedy of how a life poorly and foolishly lived brings torment and heartache not just to that person, but everyone around that person. The Supreme Court may have granted the right for a woman, however her life is lived, to make her individual, solitary choice, but her choice will and does affect the lives (born and unborn) for generations. Even forever. Prager has etched Norma McCorvey's choice and the life of her daughter and those around her into history. The lives and relationships of the millions upon millions of other women and their unborn children have not been written.

I learned so much. I could not put this down for 1 week. Then at page 350 or so it started to get repetitious and o lost steam. I nearly didn’t finish it when. A friend who did said I was nearly done. The last 180 pages are authors notes, sources and pics.This is was an incredible history lesson, and call to action for me.

This is a great warts-and-all examination of all the players involved in the Roe vs. Wade case. Presented in even-handed fashion, I wasn’t even aware of the author’s views on abortion until reading the epilogue. A great way to bring yourself up to speed on this timely topic without getting mired in political partisanship.

Really lays out the history of Roe and the humanity that lies at the heart of the issue of abortion in America. Highly recommend!

I don’t love to read, but with the latest Supreme Court decision I wanted to learn more about the history of Roe. I enjoyed the books balance between the telling of Norma’s life and the facts and laws that helped shape where we are as a nation today. I wish everyone would read this book because it is eye opening and important.

Absolutely great book. I finished it the night after scotus leak. I learned so much about the whole situation, the history about it. I think it’s a book that really shows the ongoing debate between pro choice and pro life. I think the historical story regarding abortion in this book was more important to me than the biographical story of Roe.

I wanted to know more about Roe vs Wade and the WSJ recently recommended this book so figured it would be a good read. I should have realized by the title that it was so about the Roe family history, which I should have realized from the title, and I think that was really what I was looking for. I don't enjoy 'technical' reading and Prager really have the history of the women who would become Roe. It you want to know the back story.... Read 'The Family Roe'

In this book of surpassingly intimate detail, Joshua Prager shows himself to be a reporter of rare tenacity and pure charm. For those, like me, who have tired of reading unending reports about the state of abortion politics, “The Family Roe” is a beautifully clear primer. But it is much more than that: an engrossingly microscopic history of a family that hardly knows it exists until Prager unites it around one accidental mother. The anonymous Jane Roe, by turns loved and reviled on either side of the abortion divide, is anything but anonymous now.