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In the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade legal case, the United States Supreme Court voted 7-2 to affirm the right to get an abortion. Despite both the colossal impact of the case and her famous pseudonym, few know the full story of Norma McCorvey: the \\u201cJane Roe\\u201d in Roe v. Wade.

Joshua Prager, a journalist with a penchant for writing about historical secrets, shared over a decade of meticulous research about McCorvey and a complex cast of characters in his new book, The Family Roe. Prager traced the past 50 years through four key figures: Linda Coffee, the critical but forgotten Texas lawyer who filed the original lawsuit and gave Jane Roe her name; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian who became a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; Mildred Jefferson, the first Black female Harvard Medical School graduate and a founder of the Right to Life Committee; and Norma McCorvey and her family, including the now-adult \\u201cRoe Baby\\u201d who was unknowingly at the center of the historic case.

McCorvey\\u2019s family history is messy and fraught with trauma, but it\\u2019s also human. As much as people might try to apply black-and-white thinking to McCorvey\\u2019s story, Prager aimed to lead us to a place of empathy and consider ever-evolving questions of family, sex, and religion, with questions of politics and the law evolving right alongside them.

Joshua Prager\\xa0is a former senior writer for\\xa0The Wall Street Journal\\xa0and\\xa0has written about historical secrets for more than 20 years. In addition to\\xa0The Family Roe, he is the author of\\xa0The Echoing Green, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and\\xa0100 Years, a collaboration with legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser. Prager has spoken at venues including TED and Google. He was a Nieman fellow at Harvard and a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at Hebrew University.\\xa0 He lives in New Jersey.

Kiana Scott\\xa0is a strategic communications expert, development leader, and active civic volunteer with more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, policy, and civic engagement. When not volunteering, she leads development and communications for CareerWork$, a workforce development nonprofit advancing economic equality for young adults. Kiana is a board member for the National Women\\u2019s Political Caucus of Washington, Vice President of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, and an elected Precinct Committee Officer. She holds a Ph.D. in political communication from UW.

Buy the Book: The Family Roe: An American Story (Hardcover)\\xa0from Elliott Bay Books

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