Story will centre on Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who represented Norma McCorvey in landmark case that paved way for abortion rights across US

The producers of Suffragette are to make a film telling the story of Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that gave every woman in the US the right to have an abortion.

According to Deadline, Alison Owen and Debra Hayward’s Monumental Pictures is set to produce the film, which will be written by the Bafta-winning screenwriter Jennifer Majka.

The story will centre on Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who represented “Jane Roe” (real name Norma McCorvey), the pregnant woman who challenged a Texan law that restricted her access to abortion. The case ultimately reached the US supreme court, whose ruling paved the way for universal women’s rights across the country. McCorvey, who died last month, claimed she had been misled by her lawyers and became a fierce opponent of abortion rights in the years following the ruling.

Owen, whose credits include Elizabeth, Shaun of the Dead and The Other Boleyn Girl, produced Suffragette in 2015. Majka co-wrote The Bigger Picture, which won the Bafta for best short animation in 2015 and was nominated for best animated film at the 2015 Academy Awards in the same year.

“Women’s reproductive freedom is just as contested now as it was before this case, and this is a story that everyone should know,” Owen said.

The announcement comes at a time when abortion rights are under concerted assault by legislators in the US following the election of Donald Trump. Last month the House of Representatives voted to permit states to withhold funds from affiliates of Planned Parenthood and other healthcare providers that offer abortions.

Weddington herself has warned that abortion rights may be under threat. “I think everyone who cares about the Roe v Wade issue and other reproductive rights is very concerned about what will happen,” she told NBC News earlier this year.