Norma McCorvey, at Center of Landmark Abortion Ruling, Dies

DALLAS (AP) — Norma McCorvey, whose legal challenge under the pseudonym "Jane Roe" led to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision that legalized abortion has died. She was 69.

McCorvey died on Saturday at an assisted living center in Katy, Texas.

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. But by the time of the ruling she had given birth and gave her daughter up for adoption.

Decades later, McCorvey underwent a conversion, becoming an evangelical Christian and later a Roman Catholic. She joined the anti-abortion movement.