Linda Coffee argued Roe v. Wade. Now, she’s watching its demise.

Linda Coffee is one of two lawyers who represented “Jane Roe” in the landmark Roe v. Wade case decided in 1973. (Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune)

Linda Coffee was driving to her office in downtown Dallas when she heard on the radio that she’d just won a U.S. Supreme Court case.

Coffee was just 30 years old in January 1973 when seven justices agreed with her argument that the U.S. Constitution protected the right to abortion early in pregnancy. The court blocked not just the Texas laws that Coffee and her co-counsel, Sarah Weddington, had challenged, but all state laws that banned abortions before fetal viability.