Apparently, Weddington is getting an award called the International ATHENA Award.
If you care to read on (you know, out of morbid fascination or something), here's a sampling.
It is the ironies of history -- specifically, women's history -- that Sarah Weddington finds remarkable. She ought to know because she's had a front row seat for many of the landmark events.
For example, Weddington is believed to be the youngest lawyer ever to win a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She was 26 in 1971 when she successfully argued Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortions legal. She returned to the country's highest court the following year to repeat those arguments, and the U.S. Supreme Court judges made their decision in January 1973.
The fact that Weddington also was a woman lawyer tackling this monumental case, in an era when few women were graduating from law schools, made the accomplishment even more noteworthy.
"When I arrived at the Supreme Court, I started thinking about my legal experience," Weddington recalls. "I had done uncontested divorces, wills for people with no money and one adoption for my uncle. That was my entire legal experience before Roe v. Wade."
The article goes on to say that she was told that women should be staying home to have babies, only men are lawyers, etc. Honestly, I can't say for sure if I believe all of it. I know things have changed over the last 40 years, but is this really how things were? I'm approaching 37, so I can't say.
I am also amazed at that last paragraph. She had nearly NO legal experience. From what I've read, she had considerable help from sympathetic justices on the Supreme Court as she argued the case.
God, I hope we can revisit this case someday to overturn it! Such an injustice!
1 comment:
If only she had used her power for good instead of evil. It sounds to me that the "sympathetic justices" may have already had their minds made up.
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