The Jane Roe kerfuffle

So news broke across the MSM that Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade fame, was really in it for the money.  That is, she was always pro-choice, but was paid on the sly by those rascally pro-life types to say she was pro-life.  And so she lied for money.  This revelation comes from a pro-choice activist documentary.  As far as I know, this is the first time anyone has made this claim about the late pro-abortion turned pro-life activist.  Donald McClarey, who had the chance to meet Ms. McCorvey, has a good unpacking of this here.

A couple things leap out at me.  First, it's my contention that there are two types of people in the world.  There are moronic jackass fools and lunatics who keep their collective heads up donkey butts, and then there are those who maintain a tremendous amount of skepticism when it comes to modern documentaries.  Modern scholarship is bad enough.  Documentaries today (think Michael Moore) are seldom anything but propaganda pieces meant to advance agendas, often by selectively focusing on molehills of exceptions to the exclusion of the mountain range of evidence behind the molehills.

That a pro-abortion advocate would be the one to break this massive bit of news is the first thing to give me pause.  Especially since a massive influx of people who met, worked with and knew Ms. McCorvey have come out to refute the documentary.  Given the lack of credibility that modern documentaries have in my mind, I'm willing to believe those who knew her personally over an activist documentary maker.

Second, I notice, as is pointed out a The American Catholic, that the press is all over this.  I had no idea that Ms. McCorvey had become a pro-life advocate until the Internet.  It was on largely conservative and pro-life Catholic sites that I was informed of her transformation.  When it happened, I don't know.  I can't recall the press making a big deal of it when her change of heart occurred.  I did hear stories involving her, and it was sometimes mentioned that she was now for the pro-life cause.  But usually that was reported as a dashed-off afterthought.

The fact that almost overnight the press has jumped on this and is hitting it with headline news reminds me of those times that press has coordinated with the Democrats or other left-wing causes to advance an agenda or a strategy.   I'm not saying this was part of some vast, coordinated strategy.  But it reminds me of just how selective the press is, and how that selectivity always swings in one direction.

For that reason, I follow my usual approach to things.  That is, assume the majority witness or the traditional interpretation until overwhelming evidence is presented to do otherwise.  Given the majority of those who knew her, and the press coverage that she had that took her at her word, plus the fact that I would have to believe she was a vile liar willing to screw all side for a buck all that time, I'll take the easier interpretation.  That is, she became pro-life, all who knew her knew she was because that what she was, and a single pro-abortion activist "documentary" producer might not be the most credible source for changing that cloud of witnesses.

UPDATE: I've been informed that Mark Shea has weighed in on this and has, as can be expected, taken the documentary's version at face value.  That should surprise nobody, as one of Mark's favorite targets is the orthodox pro-life movement based on historical Christian understandings of life and eternity, vs. the new pro-life movement which is based more on modern, secular and oft times Marxist worldviews.  As I said, the documentary means nothing to me since I know how easily such productions can manipulate and twist things.  See Triumph of the Will for an excellent example.  Nonetheless, it does show a difference between those who accept the premises of the modern secular paganism of our age and traditional Christians who don't. That is, the difference between the view that the person comes first and pro-life means anything that might hinder *MY* life, versus the historical approach that concede things in this world and the next to which I am beholden, and reminds me that I am not the alpha and omega of all that matters.