In the years before Roe v. Wade, three UT Austin students built a quiet network helping women access birth control and abortion care in Texas.
March 5, 2026
by Livia Follet and Ava Slocum
In 1969, Victoria Foe, Judy Smith and Barbara Hines were students at the University of Texas in Austin, when Smith invited Foe and Hines to attend women’s liberation meetings at her house. What began as late-night conversations quickly grew into a campus Birth Control Information Center … and eventually an underground network helping women access abortion at a time when the procedure was illegal in Texas.
Their activism would eventually extend far beyond their university campus, planting the seeds for Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that would legalize abortion in the U.S. Not until 1965 did the Supreme Court recognize a constitutional right for married couples to use birth control; in 1972, it extended that right to unmarried people as well.
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