Two women who had trouble finding work
They Won It, 7 to 2
“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.” Sarah
Weddington
How many women as well as babies
would have died if Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee had
never been born? Weddington was out front in the Roe v. Wade case: Coffee in the background. They were the 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.
Linda Coffee
Sarah
Weddington is the name that comes to mind to anyone who is familiar with Roe v. Wade. Yet another attorney,
Linda Nellene Coffee, was very much a part of the case from the beginning.
Weddington went on to a career
in politics. Coffee
worked as a lawyer and avoided the
limelight.
Like Weddington, Coffee graduated from the University of
Texas Law School/Austin, a year after Weddington in 1968. She held an undergraduate degree in German
from Rice University. Much of the information for
this chapter comes from a 19 January 2017 article in Vanity
Fair by Joshua Prager called “Roe v. Wade’s Secret Heroine Tells
Her Story.” I asked Prager if he could put us in contact. He said Coffee had
asked that he not do that. I did
find an address for her, have sent a letter, but didn’t expect nor did I
receive a reply.
Linda Nellene
Coffee was a Christmas Day baby making
her appearance in Houston, Texas in
1942. When the family, which included a younger sister,
moved to Dallas,
she became active
in the local Southern Baptist Church.
Her career choice as a lawyer
was not based on a lifelong calling.
An excellent student,
she considered medicine and math. Her degree from Rice University in 1961 was in German.
But she took the LSAT and entered law school, graduating with highest honors.
She had the second highest bar exam score in the state.
Coffee’s
early exposure to the abortion issue was when she saw a film in high school. It
planted the seed that women should be able to control their own fertility.
After graduation, Coffee found women
were not in demand in Texas legal
firms. Domestic-relations law
interested her after she had interned with a legal aid society that worked with
disadvantaged women.
Eventually
she worked with the Texas Legislative Council where she helped draft bills to
be put before the legislature. According to the Prager article,
her supervisor encouraged the clerks to take
stances.
She was exposed to a case in 1969 that challenged
the sodomy laws based on privacy issues,
which would later feature in Roe
v. Wade.
Coffee
wanted to tackle the abortion laws. In the year 1970, history would change
possibilities for American
women. Coffee met Norma McCorvey, who would become
“Jane Roe.” They lined up with Sarah Weddington, who also wanted
to challenge the abortion laws.
Coffee did much of the initial
work in writing
the petitions, filing
the suit and sharing in the oral argument in the district court.
The Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut,
which annulled the state’s ban on contraception, would provide the basis. The reason? It violated a right to “marital privacy.” Coffee also brought in the 1st,
4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, and 14th amendments (See Appendix A).
It cost $30 to file the suit on 3 March 1970 at the
Dallas federal district
courthouse.
Weddington and Coffee won the first round—sort of. The
three judges said the law was void BUT that the district attorney could
continue to enforce the same unconstitutional laws.
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.
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.
Sarah Weddington
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 Coffee. 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. (See Chapter 27)
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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