Interview With Linda Coffee (age 27), Attorney for Norma McCorvey (Roe v. Wade) - June 18 1970

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q13zDa-XI3E
Youtube channel "SMU Jones Film"

Interview With Linda Coffee, Attorney for Norma McCorvey (Roe v. Wade) - June 1970
2,801 views as of Jun 28 2022
Feb 10, 2021 (post date)

Linda Coffee, the 27-year-old Dallas attorney who filed a federal lawsuit against Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade and the State of Texas seeking to strike down the state’s law making abortion illegal, is interviewed; the arguments of Coffee and her co-counsel, Sarah Weddington, challenged the constitutionality of the state’s law banning abortion, and the previous day, June 17, 1970, a panel of three federal judges in Dallas agreed and ruled that the law was unconstitutional and infringed upon the fundamental rights of women to choose whether to have a child – this ruling was the first step in the journey which ultimately ended in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade which made abortion legal in the United States; Coffee, who represented Norma McCorvey (aka “Jane Roe”) in the case, says in the interview that she believes that the previous day’s ruling means that more open abortions will be performed, even though doctors might be inhibited in performing such procedures because the judgment did not strictly prohibit Dallas D.A. Wade from continuing to prosecute doctors (which led Coffee and Weddington to then appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court); Coffee says that yesterday’s court ruling will help to “legitimize” the performing of abortions as a standard medical procedure; she goes on to say that she and Weddington believe that the State cannot consider moral justification when enacting criminal legislation; she continues, saying that this ruling will mean that women in Texas will no longer suffer from feelings of guilt, because they will no longer be committing an illegal act – but until there is a clear ruling absolving doctors who perform abortions from prosecution, women may have a hard time finding physicians who are willing to perform the procedure; Phil Reynolds reporting.