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May 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Two years ago Norma McCorvey, the famed “Jane Roe” of Roe vs. Wade, decided to move to the small town of Smithville, Texas – a seemingly arbitrary decision given she had no family or friends there.

Now, she says, the reason for the move has become clear.

McCorvey was recently tapped to appear in an upcoming film called Doonby as a “pivotal” character who tries to persuade a young woman not to have an abortion, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Before contacting McCorvey, the film’s director, Peter MacKenzie had already decided to shoot the film in Smithville, not realizing that McCorvey had moved there two years earlier.

McCorvey told that Hollywood Reporter that she saw her involvement in the film as providential.

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“I guess you could say the project chose me. God told me to move there two years before but didn’t really tell me why. So I obeyed. I had no family there, no friends. I just obeyed,” McCorvey said.

McCorvey, whose unplanned pregnancy became the basis for the 1973 Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion in the United States, has since converted to Catholicism and become involved in the pro-life movement as an activist and popular speaker. She filed an unsuccessful suit to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2004.

The movie, scheduled for release in September, stars John Schneider as Sam Doonby, a mysterious drifter whose appearance in a small Texas town changes the lives of its residents.

In a recent blog post, writer and director Peter MacKenzie called the film “powerful and disturbing,” adding that it would “inspire furious debate in a country deeply divided over social issues.”

“A powerful viral marketing campaign is being planned to get the word out to millions of moviegoers around the world about this piece of masterful storytelling,” he wrote.

Mark Joseph, the film’s co-producer, has previously been involved in faith-based films such as The Ultimate Gift, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Passion of the Christ.

MacKenzie told the Hollywood Reporter that the part of the movie dealing with abortion was a sub-plot. He wanted McCorvey to be involved because she “encapsulated American thinking on the issue.”

“Our movie has people talking not about whether abortion should be legal or illegal, but about something that we should all be able to agree on: Every abortion performed means that something is lost,” he said.