Sarah Weddington was the keynote speaker for the National Organization for Women-New York state annual conference in Saratoga Springs on Saturday. The conference, held at the Gideon Putnam Hotel, was entitled “The Millennium Summit – To Your Health,” and highlighted health care and reproductive rights. Lois Shapiro-Canter, NY NOW president, spoke about the high cost of women’s health care and demanded a woman’s right “to control her own body.”
Weddington argued the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed a woman’s right to legal abortion. “That day, I thought we ended the abortion issue. But if you had told me 26, 27 years later we’d still be debating it, I wouldn’t have believed it,” reflected Weddington in her keynote address on Saturday.
The Feminist Majority Foundation will honor Weddington as the youngest woman ever to argue and win a landmark case before the United States Supreme Court in a Salute to Feminist Firsts and Landmarks at Feminist Expo 2000 for Women’s Empowerment, March 31 – April 2, 2000 in Baltimore, MD.
