Sarah Weddington, a lawyer who successfully argued the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade at just 26-years-old, died on Sunday.

According to Weddington’s former student Susan Hays, who spoke The Texas Tribune, the former attorney passed at 76 following a series of health issues.

While Weddington was in poor health, her cause of death is not clear, and she was found unresponsive in her Austin home early Sunday by her assistant.

She was born in Abilene, Texas, in 1945 and attended McMurry University before graduating from the University of Texas School of Law in 1967.

It was just five years later that she represented Norma McCorvey, known in court documents as “Jane Roe”, before the Supreme Court, successfully affirming the woman’s right to have an abortion under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Weddington later ran to represent Austin in the Texas House of Representatives and was elected in 1972, serving three terms as a state lawmaker.

She would go on to become general counsel of the United States Department of Agriculture and later worked as an advisor on women’s issues to former President Jimmy Carter. 

In addition to her political work, Weddington was also a professor at the University of Texas at Austin for 28 years, where she taught courses on gender-based discrimination.

Weddington’s death comes as the Supreme Court is considering Mississippi’s highly controversial abortion case, which is largely considered to be the most legitimate challenge to the Roe decision in recent years.

Carter remembered Weddington in a statement Monday morning, according to CNN, saying she “was a warrior in the continuing struggle for equal rights for women. She dedicated her life to that mission and was a leading force for these rights in my administration. Rosalynn and I add our voices to those who mourn her passing.”

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