THE MOM WHO CHANGED THE FACE OF AMERICA

FOR most people the name Norma McCorvey probably doesn’t ring a bell but Jane Roe, on the other hand, is a household name – even though she never really existed.

Jane Roe was the pseudonym Norma used when she mounted a legal challenge that resulted in the landmark Roe vs Wade American supreme court judgement which granted all American women the constitutional right to have an abortion.

Back in 1970 she wasn’t looking to be a hero – pregnant for the third time with a child she couldn’t afford to raise, the 22-year-old waitress from Dallas in Texas was desperate.

And now more than half a century later she’s back in the spotlight as the same court that ruled in her favour is seemingly on the brink of reversing the famous judgement which became part of the bedrock of US law.

AT AGE 17 SHE WAS ALREADY MARRIED TO AN ABUSIVE HUSBAND AND EXPECTING HER FIRST CHILD

“Roe [vs Wade] was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel Alito writes in a draft decision reflecting the views of the majority of the judges on the