Sarah Weddington, attorney who secured abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, dies at 76 in Austin

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Sarah Weddington, who successfully argued against Texas' anti-abortion statutes before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade, died in Austin at age 76 Sunday morning, according to multiple reports.

Susan Hays, a student of Weddington's and a Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner, said on Twitter that Weddington died after "a series of health issues."

"She was my professor at UT, the best writing instructor I ever had, and a great mentor," Hays wrote.

Weddington's death comes as the precedent set by the Roe v. Wade decision is being tested by new lawsuits and laws, including Texas' Senate Bill 8, which bans most abortions in the state because of its six-week gestation limit. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court justices allowed abortion providers to sue some state leaders to block the ban but let the law remain in effect.

"She shows the tremendous impact that one determined woman can make," U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said in a statement. "With Sarah gone, it is more important than ever to ensure that the fundamental constitutional freedom for which she secured recognition from our highest court is not also gone."

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Weddington, born in Abilene in 1945, graduated from the University of Texas Law School in 1967, a few years before taking on the landmark abortion case that would eventually legalize abortion in the United States.

In 1970, Weddington and Linda Coffee filed a lawsuit on behalf of Norma McCorvey, a woman in Dallas who had sought an abortion and was named as "Jane Roe" in the case to protect her identity.

Weddington and Coffee sued Henry Wade, a Dallas district attorney responsible for enforcing a Texas anti-abortion statute. They argued before the nation's Supreme Court that Texas' laws were vague and violated McCorvey's constitutional right to privacy to choose an abortion, and they won the case 7-2.

"A lot of people together won Roe v. Wade," Weddington told a group of UT students in 1998, according to an American-Statesman article. "We give it to you proudly so it can be passed down to other generations."

In the nearly 50 years since that Supreme Court victory, Weddington continued a trailblazing path, becoming the first woman elected to the Texas House of Representatives from Austin and Travis County in the early 1970s.

She later became the first woman to be general counsel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was a special assistant to President Jimmy Carter from 1978 to 1981.

She lectured at Texas Woman's University from 1981 to 1990 and was a professor at UT for 28 years. She also founded the Weddington Center and was "devoted to helping individuals develop their personal leadership skills and to increasing the number of women who hold leadership positions," according the center's website.

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Weddington also fought against breast cancer and detailed part of her experience in a 2001 American-Statesman personal essay.

"I have many labels that I worked hard to achieve. ... But I have a new label l wish weren't true: breast cancer patient," she wrote.

Weddington later underwent surgery and chemotherapy, according to the Weddington Center.

In a 2012 essay, Weddington said she looked forward to being buried near Texas Gov. Ann Richards' gravesite in the Texas State Cemetery.

"My gravesite is about 50 feet away from hers. Hopefully, when I call the Texas State Cemetery home, we will have great late-night conversations, remembering our battles of the past and celebrating the victories that live after us," she wrote in The Texas Observer.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Sarah Weddington, lawyer who secured abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, dies