Woman behind landmark abortion ruling in US dies

DALLAS: Norma McCorvey, whose legal challenge under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” led to the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision that legalised abortion, has died of heart failure aged 69. McCorvey was 22, unmarried, unemployed and pregnant 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. AP