Shelley Lynn Thornton

Shelley Lynn Thornton (born June 2, 1970) is the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey. Also referred to as the "Roe baby", Thornton was the child resulting from the pregnancy at the center of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. She was not aware of her relationship to the court case until 1989 when she was 19 years old, and her identity was not publicly known until 2021. Her birth mother first made contact with her in 1989 when she was a teenager living near Seattle.

Thornton married her boyfriend Doug of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March 1991; they had a son born later that year, and then two daughters in 1999 and 2000. The family moved to Tucson, Arizona, for Doug's job.

Thornton's identity as the "Roe baby" was publicly revealed in 2021 with the release of Joshua Prager's book, The Family Roe: An American Story.

Discovery of Roe v. Wade connection Thornton was McCorvey's third child. Although McCorvey had wanted to have an abortion, it was prohibited by the laws in Texas. McCorvey eventually brought, and won, a lawsuit, securing a right for women to obtain abortions in the United States that remained recognized for nearly 50 years until the decision was overturned in 2022. Despite McCorvey's desire at the time to have an abortion, she instead obeyed the Texas law, giving birth and releasing her baby for adoption before Roe v. Wade was ruled. McCorvey's baby was given the name Shelley Lynn Thornton by her adoptive parents, and Thornton was two-and-a-half years old when the Supreme Court case was decided.

Many years later, after Thornton learned of her identity as the "Roe baby", she engaged in telephone conversations with McCorvey, who, according to Thornton, told her that she was placed for adoption because McCorvey "knew [that she] couldn't take care of [me]."

Reaction to the decision overturning Roe Following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe, Thornton released a statement speaking out against the decision. In her statement, Thornton said that she worries the Dobbs ruling could foreshadow future turmoil, saying that "too many times has a woman's choice, voice, and individual freedom been decided for her by others. Being that I am bound to the center of Roe v. Wade, I have a unique perspective on this matter." She added, "I believe that the decision to have an abortion is a private, medical choice that should be between a woman, her family, and her doctor. We have lived in times of uncertainty and insecurity before, but to have such a fundamental right taken away and this ruling be overturned concerns me of what lies ahead."