Sarah Weddington, Who Successfully Argued Roe v. Wade, Dies at 76
The New York Times
She went before the U.S. Supreme Court at 26 with almost no legal experience and won one of the most consequential cases in American history.
Sarah Weddington, the young Texas lawyer whose successful arguments before the Supreme Court in the landmark Roe v. Wade case led to the legalization of abortion throughout the United States, died on Sunday at her home in Austin. She was 76.
Rebecca Seawright, a former assistant to Ms. Weddington and a member of the New York State Assembly, said that she had been in declining health but that the cause of her death had yet to be determined.
Ms. Weddington was 26 and had never tried a legal case when she and Linda Coffee, her co-counsel, went before the Supreme Court in 1971. Their legal battle culminated on Jan. 22, 1973, when the court ruled in one of the most consequential decisions in American history that a Texas state law banning abortions except to save the woman’s life was unconstitutional.
