US attorney Sarah Weddington has died at the age of 76. In the 1970s, Weddington and her colleague Linda Coffee assisted a Texas woman who wanted an abortion. The case was fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won by Weddington and Coffee.
The 1973 ruling marked a milestone in the fight for abortion rights in America, and is still the most important case law on abortion in the US. The case, known as Roe v. Wade, has legalized conditional abortion across the country.
Weddington’s cause of death has not been released. She had been in poor health for many years.
Texas abortion law challenged
Roe v. Wade was Weddington’s first case after law school. Texas woman Norma McCorvey already had two children and was pregnant with a third child. She wanted to terminate that pregnancy. Under Texas law, however, an abortion was only allowed if the mother’s life was in danger.
Weddington and Coffee filed a lawsuit against Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade. McCorvey was staged under the alias Jane Roe. The verdict in the case ultimately came too late to force an abortion. McCorvey gave birth to . in 1970 a daughterwhich she gave up for adoption. Still, the legal battle continued.
It ended up in the Supreme Court. There it was concluded that the abortion law then in effect in Texas was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the right to privacy.
From lawyer to politician
Texan Democratic politician Susan Hays says on Twitter that she looked up to Weddington, with whom she did part of her law studies. “She pleaded this case to the Supreme Court at the age of 27 (which always made me feel like an unbelievable good-for-nothing). Ironically, she worked on this case because law firms didn’t want to hire women in the 1970s, so she had plenty of time to spare. to kick some ass.”
Already during Roe v. Wade, Weddington entered politics. She was one of the few women elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1972 for Democrats. She served three terms in it. She then became an adviser to the Department of Agriculture and an adviser to President Carter on women’s rights. She also lectured at the University of Texas.
Weddington was aware of the stamp Roe v. Wade left on her career. “My obituary will in any case say ‘lawyer for Roe v. Wade passed away’, whatever I do in my life,” she said in an interview four years ago.
Right to abortion under pressure
The ruling in Roe v. Wade has been challenged several times over the years. Supporters are currently concerned about a case of the state of Mississippi, which wants to allow abortions only in the first 15 weeks of a pregnancy. The Supreme Court is considering it now.
The Supreme Court now has a majority of conservative judges. Experts say the Supreme Court could reverse its ruling in Roe v. Wade if the state of Mississippi wins the case.
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