Sarah Weddington, the attorney who represented “Jane Roe” Norma McCorvey in the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, died in her Texas home Sunday, according to reports.
She was 76.
“Sarah Weddington was a Texas giant,” Texas state Rep. John Bucy said on Twitter.
“From litigating Roe v. Wade, to serving in the Texas House, to supporting countless women in politics, she has left a legacy of fighting for progress that is nearly unmatched,” he wrote.
Weddington, the daughter of a Methodist minister, was 26 years old and just five years removed from law school when she took on the controversial case.
She had been among only five women out of a class of 1,600 to graduate with a law degree from the University of Texas in 1967, the encyclopedia said.
McCorvey sued to demand the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy.
Weddington, a Texas native, took up McCorvey’s challenge to the Lone Star State’s abortion restrictions before the Supreme Court and won the 1973 ruling that opened the door for abortion to be deemed legal in the US.
The court ruled 7-2 in McCorvey’s favor.
A firebrand, Weddington was still arguing Roe v. Wade in 1972 when she ran for state legislature and became the first woman elected to the Texas House of Representatives serving Austin, according to Britannica.
Weddington’s death comes as Roe v. Wade faces its most serious challenge in decades.
The Supreme Court is currently weighing a challenge to Mississippi’s ban on abortion, with six conservative justices on the nine-member court signaling support for the ban.
