Prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade court decision, each state had its own abortion laws. Many had laws on the books banning it completely, but others legalized it in some form well before 1973. Roe didn’t become Roe overnight. We can trace its roots back more than a decade prior. And as is usually the case with abortion, once an inch is given, so to speak, those in favor of it tend take a mile. Here’s where it began:

1959: American Law Institute passes model penal code to liberalize abortion, the basis for Roe v. Wade

In 1959, the American Law Institute (A.L.I.), an organization of American lawyers and other elite members of the judiciary, whose mission was the reform of American law, proposed that therapeutic abortions should be legal. Although…