Deaths on February 18

Norma McCorvey, American abortion rights activist; Plaintiff, Roe vs. Wade (b. 1947)

Norma Leah Nelson McCorvey (September 22, 1947 – February 18, 2017), also known by the pseudonym "Jane Roe", was the plaintiff in the landmark American legal case Roe v. Wade in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that individual state laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.Later in her life, McCorvey became a Evangelical Protestant, and thereafter a Roman Catholic, and took part in the anti-abortion movement. McCorvey stated then that her involvement in Roe was "the biggest mistake of [her] life." During an interview shortly before her death, in what McCorvey referred to as her "deathbed confession", she said she had been paid to speak against abortion, and added that she continued to have abortion-rights beliefs.