Sanya Richards-Ross, front center, and Allyson Felix, back left, celebrate winning gold in the women’s 4x400 meter relay final during the athletics in the Olympic Stadium at the Summer Olympics in London in 2012. Ms. Richards-Ross revealed that two weeks before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she had an abortion while in a relationship with her then-fiancé Aaron Ross.
Stories this photo appears in:
Roe v. Wade’s impact on professional women athletes, by Donald J. Adams Jr.
June 23 marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX — a federal law passed in 1972 that outlawed discrimination based on sex in educational institutions. For women in sports, the law enabled them to perform in athletics with equal funding and many of the same opportunities given men in collegiate athletics. A day after this landmark anniversary, athletes were no longer celebrating the freedoms they were given 50 years ago.
