MARCH 8, 2012
\nby Mackenzie Fanaro ’14, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
In the 39 years since Sarah Weddington successfully argued Roe v. Wade<\/em> before the Supreme Court, she has seen a great deal of change.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a different world,\u201d said Weddington.<\/p>\n She was not referring to the landmark decision in 1973 that legalized abortion, or the fact that female lawyers are no longer a rarity in court.<\/p>\n She was talking about her cell phone.<\/p>\n On Feb. 28 Weddington spoke to a crowd of students and visitors on Furman\u2019s campus. She made light of forgetting to silence her cell phone and had the audience engaged from the beginning. It was clear during her talk, “Historical Review of Roe v. Wade<\/em>,” that Weddington was going to share more than the history of the case.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery one of you should think about leadership as the willingness and ability to leave your thumbprint,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The impression that Weddington has made on society is much greater than a thumbprint. Growing up as a preacher\u2019s daughter, she\u00a0was a natural born leader. She refused to take no for an answer and pushed back barriers that impacted women of her time.<\/p>\n In high school in the early 1960s, Weddington was denied the opportunity to run for president of the study body because of her sex. She became president of the Future Homemakers of America, one of the few things a woman could be president of at the time.<\/p>\n As a college\u00a0undergraduate, Weddington met with the dean of McMurry University to discuss her plans of applying to law school, only to be told she couldn’t\u2014no woman from McMurry University had ever gone to law school.<\/p>\n She became the first.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is impossible to know where you\u2019re going,\u201d said Weddington to a room full of students who spend years planning their futures.<\/p>\n After graduating from law school, she\u00a0was unable to find a job. She made the most\u00a0of an opportunity to help a group of women determine the legal consequences of spreading information about contraception. Weddington was willing to help without charging a fee. She headed to the University of Texas law library and filed a lawsuit, never imagining that it would lead her to argue Roe v. Wade<\/em> at 26 years of age.<\/p>\n Weddington said she realizes that many people disagree with her stance on this controversial issue, and opposition is something she will never be exempt from.<\/p>\n For example, an audience member stood up before the conclusion of her\u00a0talk and argued that by supporting abortion, Weddington is essentially supporting murder.<\/p>\n The remark seemed to catch everyone by surprise, except Weddington.<\/p>\n She did not need a moment to collect her thoughts. Weddington reverted back to the 26-year-old lawyer that argued Roe v. Wade<\/em> and said, \u201cLots of people have laws in their hearts. You do not have a right to force that on other people.\u201d<\/p>\n The man\u2019s response was drowned out by the audience\u2019s applause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MARCH 8, 2012 In the 39 years since Sarah Weddington successfully argued Roe v. Wade<\/em> before the U.S. Supreme Court, she has seen a great deal of change.\u00a0\u201cIt is a different world,\u201d said Weddington.\u00a0 She was not referring to the landmark decision in 1973 that legalized abortion, or the fact that female lawyers are no longer a rarity in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-politics-and-international-affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby Mackenzie Fanaro ’14, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n