How many women as well as babies would have died if Sarah Weddington had never been born? Weddington was out front in the Roe v. Wade case: Linda Coffee in the background. Weddington was one of two lawyers who won Roe v. Wade, taking abortion from the back alleys to safe places. The court case gave women back control of their wombs.
Sarah Ragle Weddington was born 5 February 1945 in Abilene, Texas to a Methodist minister, Rev. Herbert Doyle Ragel, and Lena Catherine.
Because her father was transferred about every four years, she regularly changed communities and schools. For some children this would have been destabilizing, but Weddington thrived and ended up developing leadership qualities that were ahead of her time. Some of her accomplishments and activities included:
• Church choir singer
• Band
• Drum major
• President of the Methodist Youth Fellowship
She earned a B.A. in English from McMurry University before studying law at the University of Texas, one of 40 women out of a student body of 1,600. Being told it would be tough as a woman, she became even more determined to finish.
Weddington knew firsthand what a woman went through if she wanted/needed an abortion when she discovered she was pregnant without wanting to be. It was in her third year of law school in 1967. Because her life was not in danger from the pregnancy, she had no hope of a legal abortion. Her solution was to go to Piedras Negras, Mexico where she was met by a man with a white shirt and brown pants. Because she worked three jobs, she could afford the procedure.
Weddington was lucky. The clinic was clean.
Weddington later told the New York Times that when she came to after the procedure she thought, “I pray that no one ever finds out about this.” Many years passed before she chose to reveal it.
The father was Ron Weddington, whom she married the next year. They divorced in 1974.
Like many new graduates, finding work was difficult. A group of graduate students from her university were working on how to challenge the abortion laws.
Norma McCorvey was introduced to Weddington by Linda Coffee, the other lawyer in the case.
McCovey was not a sweet woman caught in a trap by unfortunate circumstances; she would never make an ideal poster child. This was not her first pregnancy; another child had been adopted by her mother. Over the years McCorvey would change from being pro-choice to pro-life—from being pro-Weddington to anti-Weddington.McCorvey was the Jane Roe in the Roe v. Wade.
Wade was Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, who had been nicknamed “The Chief” by the Dallas Bar. He gained more national attention after the release of the film The Thin Blue Line about the conviction of Randall Dale Adams for killing Police Officer Robert Wood. Although sentenced to death, Adams was exonerated in 1988. Some 15 people who were sentenced under Wade’s watch were later found innocent thanks to DNA testing.
This was the case for which Weddington and Coffee had been waiting. Preparation included working with doctors who had seen far too many women suffer and/or die in the many hospital obstetrics infection wards maintained for the women who had complications from illegal or self-induced abortions.
Coffee and Weddington first presented the case in district court in Dallas in May 1970.
Ward helped them without wanting to when he said, “I don’t care what any court says; I am going to continue to prosecute doctors who carry out abortion.” Procedural rules stated if local elected officials continue to prosecute after a federal court ruling of unconstitutionality, there is a right to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Coffee appealed to the Supreme Court, and on 3 May 1970 they agreed to hear the case.
For many reasons the team decided that Weddington would be the presenter. She preferred the spotlight. Coffee sat and watched.
Weddington had done very little legal work when she went before the highest court in the country. She based her major arguments on the 14th amendment (See Appendix A) and another Supreme Court ruling, the Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which allowed the sale of contraceptives based on the right of privacy.
Right before the hearing started, Weddington said she had a flashback to her own abortion. No woman, she felt, should have to go through that even though she did not die and was not physically permanently damaged.
As the hearing began she said she was very nervous, but once she stood, she said that she felt herself grow calm.
Her opening remarks stated, “We are not here to advocate abortion. We do not ask the court to rule that abortion is good or desirable in any particular situation. We are here to advocate that the decision whether or not a particular woman will continue to carry or will terminate a pregnancy is a decision that is made by that individual. That in fact she has a constitutional right to make that decision for herself.”
She claims that she was “conscious the fate of many women for many years would be resting on my performance.”
When the judgement came down 22 January 1973 only Weddington was mentioned in the news reports. She was content in the result but not the attention.
They’d won with a 7-2 majority. Weddington had to wait for the ruling to be airmailed to her in those pre-fax, pre-email days before she could read the opinions. She was 26 and remains one of the youngest lawyers to ever go before the Supreme Court successfully.
Weddington went on to a distinguished career including:
• Three terms in the Texas House of Representatives
• First female General Counsel in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1977
• Assistant to President Jimmy Carter, 1978-1981
• Lecturer at Texas Female University, 1981-1990
• Founder of the Weddington Center
• Speaker and adjunct professor at the University of Texas Austin
Weddington wonders why the debate continues, not just about abortion but contraception as well. She knows many of the people who persist are religious but decries that one person’s religion should control the life of a person who is not of that belief system.
It is not just the right for a woman to have an abortion that she supports. Weddington talked about Planned Parenthood: “The federal government has never given money to Planned Parenthood for abortion. It gives money to it for the provision of contraception and well-woman care: for the treatment of venereal disease, mammograms, and so on. The anti-abortionists recognize that the money is not used for abortion, but they want it cut off anyway. It is a real threat. But Planned Parenthood may ultimately benefit from what Trump is doing and saying. Last week, I was in Houston for a Planned Parenthood event. Usually, there would be about 1,000 people in the audience. This time, we had 2,500. People are very worried, and they are giving more generously.”
Weddington says she thinks when they write her obituary that it will feature her Roe v. Wade victory. Depending on who writes it she will be either considered a heroine for saving the lives of perhaps millions of women or an evil person responsible for the deaths of millions of babies.
Works by Sarah Weddington
• A Question of Choice, Smithmark Publishers, 1993
• The United States Delegation to the United Nations Mid-Decade Conference for Women, Copenhagen, 1980
• The legal status of homemakers in Texas, 1997
• “Getting the Right to Choose,” Time, 31 March 2003
Works with Sarah Weddington as a Contributing Author
• Guide to resources, 1980
• Honoring a commitment to the people of America: the record of President Jimmy Carter on issues, 1980
• Roe v. Wade: proceedings of arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, 1970s
• Barbara Vackar papers, 1972–1979
• Hermine Tobolowsky collection, 1957–1983
• Texas women in politics, 1977
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