Attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington file Roe v. Wade in federal court challenging Texas's criminal abortion ban on behalf of Norma McCorvey

Dallas attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed a class action lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas on March 3, 1970, on behalf of Norma McCorvey — identified as "Jane Roe" — challenging Texas Penal Code Articles 1191-1194, which prohibited abortion except to save the mother's life. The named defendant was Henry Wade, Dallas County District Attorney responsible for enforcing the ban. Coffee and Weddington, both recent University of Texas Law School graduates, had spent months searching for a plaintiff willing to challenge the law; McCorvey, a 21-year-old carnival worker seeking to end her third pregnancy, agreed to be the plaintiff.