Talk:Abortion in Wisconsin

1849 law
Hey, so I've looked into this quite a bit and would love if someone could answer this. All the references to this 1849 law are kind of vague, because the history of the 1849 law is somewhat incomplete. The abortion language is not found in any act published in the 1849 acts of the legislature (unless those volumes are incomplete). The LRB "Abortion Laws in Wisconsin" references "Chapter 133, Section 11, Laws of 1849". Chapter 133 of the acts of 1849 is an act to amend the charter of Lawrence University -- and has nothing to do with abortion.

This "chapter 133" apparently refers to a section of the 1849 "revised statutes" of Wisconsin. Which is a compilation of the laws in effect in the state. The abortion language falls within the section on "offenses against the lives and persons of individuals" -- most of that language was adopted by the Wisconsin Territory legislature as part of large overhaul of the criminal code. However the law did not have the abortion language when it was originally adopted by the Territory government. I've scoured the acts of the legislature in 1848 or the later sessions of the territorial assembly. I think it would be a service to history if someone could pinpoint how the abortion language ended up on the books in 1849. -- Asdasdasdff (talk) 04:32, 24 February 2023 (UTC)


 * If anyone else was curious, I found in the Senate journal of 1849 that they passed a law called "An Act in relation to homicide" -- which other sources indicate contained the abortion language. But that act still does not appear in the published acts of the 1849 legislature.  -- Asdasdasdff (talk) 22:02, 10 March 2023 (UTC)