WOMAN WHO HELPED LEGALISE ABORTION DIES

Dallas, Feb. 19: Norma McCorvey, whose legal challenge under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” led to the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision that legalised abortion but who later became an outspoken opponent of the procedure, died on Sunday at 69.

McCorvey was 22, unmarried, unemployed and pregnant for the third time in 1969 when she sought to have an abortion in Texas, where the procedure was illegal except to save a woman’s life. The subsequent lawsuit, known as Roe v. Wade, led to the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling that established abortion rights. Later, she underwent a conversion, becoming an evangelical Christian and joining the anti-abortion movement.