In 1854, Abraham Lincoln confronted America’s first “pro-choice” senator, Stephen Douglas, in a speech in Peoria, Ill. “Choice” then was about slavery, not abortion.

Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which addressed the sticky question of how to deal with legality of slavery in new territories entering the union. The Kansas-Nebraska Act resolved this by “choice.” Residents would vote to decide if slavery would be legal in their territory.