Roe v. Wade Lawyer Sarah Weddington Laid Off as Texas Professor

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 2, 2011   |   1:37PM   |   Austin, TX

Budget cuts at the University of Texas have forced college officials to lay off Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who was the main attorney behind the infamous Roe v. Wade case that allowed virtually unlimited abortions.

According to the Daily Texan, Weddington knew the university was facing budget problems but did not expected to lose her job as an adjunct professor, that pays her an annual salary of $80,899 per year, according to UT figures.

She had served on the faculty of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies for 23 years at the University of Texas, located in her home state. Weddington brought the original case for abortion in Dallas and Wade is the last name of Henry Wade, the district attorney in the area at the time.

Weddington will forever be known as the lead attorney in the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case that has allowed 53 million abortions since 1973. Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of the case, was a woman who wanted a divorce from her husband and never obtained an abortion. McCorvey, who has since become pro-life,says Weddington used her case to push for abortions and was never something she desired to pursue in court.

Weddington was only 26-years-old when she went to the Supreme Court in 1971 to argue the case that would eventually topple pro-life laws nationwide two years later. She recalled her involvement in an interview with the Vancouver Sun newspaper in February 2008, and she said she can find nothing in her career or life that she realizes she will be remembered for nothing more than her involvement in that case.

“There were some years when I thought, ‘How will I trump Roe vs. Wade?’ I have finally made peace with the fact that I will never trump it,” she said.

Weddington told the newspaper that the first line of her obituary when she dies will highlight her involvement in the case.

The pro-abortion attorney told the Sun she’s worried that today’s young women don’t understand the supposed value of what she did. She related the story of wearing a button with a coat-hanger and a slash through it — a symbol of abortion advocates that they don’t want abortion illegal again. A young flight attendant looked at the button over the course of a plane ride and finally asked her its meaning.

“What do you have against coat hangers?” the young woman said.

After arguing for abortion, Weddington eventually became an advisor to President Jimmy Carter and pushed for research on breast cancer, a disease from which she is a survivor. Ironically, dozens of studies have linked induced abortions to an increasing risk of breast cancer and a top researcher says more than 300,000 women have died from breast cancer as a result of having abortions.

Weddington’s husband has an abortion legacy of his own, according to papers obtained from Bill Clinton’s administration. The papers reveal that, before he became president, Clinton received a letter from Ron Weddington who urged the then-Arkansas governor to promote RU 486. Clinton eventually approved the abortion drug before he left office and it has been responsible for killing more than a dozen women and injuring another 1,200 or more.