Persistent Champion of Choice : Women: Nineteen years after Roe v. Wade, attorney Sarah Weddington is speaking out about her role in the case and her own abortion.

AUSTIN, Tex. —  The lobby walls of the Driskill Hotel are hung with the portraits of figures of Texas political lore, men like Sam Houston and William B. Travis of Alamo fame. But on a rainy evening, a rather demure-looking woman in a conservative black suit and tidy tucked hairdo is the center of attention.

First, Texas Democratic Party chairman Bob Slagle comes up to hug and say hello. They chat briefly about how well things are going in the presidential campaign.

Then two young women walk by, one whispering to the other, “Is that Sarah Weddington?” They turn back and stop to introduce themselves. As the two say goodby, one adds: “Of course, it goes without saying how much I admire you.”

Weddington is used to this by now. The 46-year-old lawyer gained fame from her first case, Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1972 Supreme Court decision.

Since then, Weddington has spent almost two decades advocating abortion rights. Today, she has been in her adopted hometown of Austin signing copies of her new book, “A Question of Choice: The Lawyer Who Won Roe v. Wade,” for a parade of admirers. Longtime friends presented many of the almost 500 copies she signs; young women like the two who paused to thank her offered others.

Weddington stood for more than five hours at a podium, first at a university bookstore and later in the hotel ballroom, signing in a consistently elegant hand. Everyone is greeted with a smile, some with hugs. An aura of restraint surrounds her, an almost Victorian quality in a woman some see as a sort of virago, a demon of the left who has led the charge for legalized abortion.

Some friends describe her as “ladylike”; almost all say she is very private.

And yet her book begins with a revelation that she had kept a very personal secret. In 1967, while a young, unmarried law student at the University of Texas, this daughter of a minister and graduate of a small Methodist college, traveled to “a dirty Mexican border town to have an abortion, fleeing the law that made abortion illegal in Texas.”

She was accompanied by her then-boyfriend and later husband, fellow law student Ron Weddington. Divorced amicably in 1974, they kept the secret until the publication of the book. “I am a very private person and would never have talked about this if I hadn’t felt that I wanted to do everything I could to help win it again. That I can’t win it in the courts, nobody can. That’s where we have to win is at the ballot box. And it was like I had to give it everything I had and it was the one thing I had never given. . . .

“My own thoughts about it are that if I had to write a caption it would be ‘giving up privacy in order to save it.’ I feel like I’m giving something very precious up and that is the ability to live my life in privacy. . . . We always had an agreement not to talk about this without talking to the other, and he (her former husband) always observed it.”

Journalist Linda Ellerbee, a friend and fellow Texan, suggested that Weddington humanize her book to make it more accessible to readers. The first draft, Weddington acknowledges, was long and perhaps too legalistic: “First, I wanted to write the perfect book, and I couldn’t write that book. Then someone said, ‘Why don’t you practice writing the book,’ and I could do that because I was freeing myself.”

Weddington admits that a more likely publication date would have been 1993, the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But in the last few years, it became increasingly obvious to her that the landmark decision was in jeopardy: “In the book, I say if anybody had said to me in 1969 or 1973, ‘You will still be talking about this in 1992,’ I would have thought they were crazy.”

As president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, she had witnessed the first skirmishes of what she calls a war of attrition during the early years of the Reagan presidency. But at that point, she says, “We still had the trump card, the Supreme Court.”

Reagan, who she notes signed California’s liberal 1967 abortion law, then began to make conservative appointments to the high court. And at that point, Weddington says, “I began to say I was for mandatory life support systems for older justices.”

The 1989, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision was the real turning point, she says, and now she sees the battle lines on three fronts: the Supreme Court, the Congress, which is considering the Freedom of Choice Bill, and state legislatures.

Her book’s publication, just two months before the fall election, is no accident. President Bush, she says, made “a pact with the radical right” in 1988, and abortion-rights advocates cannot risk more of his court appointments: “The sands of time ran out when Clarence Thomas was confirmed.”

Weddington says Bill Clinton would sign the Freedom of Choice Act. But even a Clinton victory will not persuade her to sit back and say the fight is over. The Arkansas governor has supported some restrictions, as Weddington describes them, particularly regarding abortions for minors. “We are trying to educate him; it’s not a natural,” she says. “I don’t think you can elect Clinton and say, ‘Well, let’s forget about that.’ ”

For this activist lawyer, who drew her strength from the women’s movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the fight is not over on other fronts, either. She sees a need to engage the younger generation and to remind Americans why Roe was so important.

“Intellectually, they believe that choice should be available, but emotionally, they have never known what it was like for it not to be,” Weddington says of younger Americans. “You can’t expect them to have the same emotional memories and commitments, and yet I don’t think you can preach to them.”

The book’s final section is a call to arms, a detailed plan for action that gives Roe defenders a game plan. Weddington expects the fight to continue well into the next century and plans to continue the battle.

“I think this issue is so basic you can’t desert it, and while it’s in trouble, you’ve got to keep plugging,” she says. “I see a new group of people who haven’t been as active, but I think they will be more comfortable with a broader focus.” That focus, she says, should include family issues and support for birth control programs.

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In one sense, Weddington admits, her career peaked at age 27 when she stood before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued her case for a woman’s right to choose. But the legal fight that began at a garage sale fund-raiser in 1969 and culminated in Roe--and her subsequent service as a special assistant on women’s issues in the Carter White House--was heady stuff for a young woman from Abilene.

She also served as one of the first women in the Texas House of Representatives (1973-1977) and was frequently mentioned as a candidate for statewide office, long before Ann Richards, her former legislative aide, won the governor’s race. Privately, a few friends admit that the stellar political career has passed Weddington by.

Elective office is not likely at this point. “I have a question whether the price is worth it,” she says. “There’s no money, and everybody is in a sour mood. When I ran, I ran to do something, and right now I don’t see that you can do that much. . . .”

For her beliefs, Weddington has paid a high personal price. She is dogged by activists opposed to abortion. At the Austin bookstore signing, several security guards were on hand.

But Roe v. Wade has also given Weddington opportunities to spread her message. For several years, she and Phyllis Schafly toured on a sort of abortion cross-fire show. Apart from not sharing the same views, they never even shared the same car. “We once tried to find something to talk about, and the only thing we agreed on was airplane coffee was usually bad,” Weddington says.

Now, Weddington plans to continue to teach part time at the University of Texas, speak around the country and ready herself for the barrage of publicity next year on the 20th anniversary of Roe. Should Clinton be elected, she would not mind serving as an adviser, but she would not want to have a full-time position in Washington. And she would like to write another book or two.

Not the least of her contributions is the impact Weddington has had on young people, particularly women. Time after time, during her Austin book signing, women in their 20s approach her, say that they had heard her speak before and tell her that she has changed their lives.

And at the last minute, three young women dash in from the rain and ask Weddington to sign their books. All three are recent graduates of the University of Texas law school and all three are Texas Supreme Court clerks. When Weddington asks how many women are in their law class, they say about 150.

Weddington smiles and says there were five when she graduated 24 years ago.