MUNSTER, Ind. (AP) – A terminally ill woman whose fight to have her same-sex marriage recognized by Indiana helped pave the way for other gay couples has lost her battle with cancer.

Lambda Legal announced Sunday that Niki Quasney of Munster had died Thursday. She was 38.

Quasney and Amy Sandler challenged Indiana's gay-marriage ban as Quasney battled ovarian cancer. The couple had a civil union in Illinois in 2011 and married in 2013 in Massachusetts. But they wanted Sandler listed as Quasney's spouse on her Indiana death certificate to ensure Sandler and the couple's two young children received death benefits.

A federal judge in April granted the couple's emergency request to have their marriage recognized and later overturned the state's gay-marriage ban. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in September.