"As they got deeper into the abortion issue, Coffee and Weddington would each come to believe that the woman’s right was unequivocal and should not be infringed upon by anyone, but they also knew tis was too radical a view to present in court-or anywhere else publicly, for that matter. Only one other issue remained to be discussed-the discrimination women suffered because of the restrictive abortion laws. Weddington felt strongly that she wanted to stress this. Imbued with a deep sense of social justice, she was acutely aware of how unmarried, pregnant women were treated in our society, the fact that they were forced to drop out of high school or to attend alternate schools, that they could not participate in school activities. Many colleges and universities would not admit unmarried, pregnant women. Employers discriminated against them in their hiring practices, and of course, many of these same prejudices applied to married, pregnant women. Weddington felt strongly that unless women could control when they bore children, they could not full control their own lives, and she wanted to emphasize this as she prepared Norma McCorvey’s case. Coffee readily agreed that these were important issues."
January 1, 1970