Reproductive Justice: Mary Wollstonecraft on Women’s “Rights Against Domination” for the “Cause of Virtue”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Wollstonecraft's name and work have been invoked repeatedly since Dobbs, not only because she wrote the first major political treatise defending women's rights but also because several leaders of the so-called “prolife” movement have sought to reclaim the label “feminist” by enlisting Wollstonecraft in the contemporary antiabortion, anticontraception, and heterosexual family-centered cause. The article challenges these anachronistic and revisionist histories, which ignore Wollstonecraft's life experiences and wider corpus. Especially in her late novel, The Wrongs of Woman, abortion is both a prominent metaphor for the book as a whole and a crucial narrative event for both heroines. I argue that Wollstonecraft's life, work, and ethical commitments, particularly her advocacy for “rights against domination” and “for the cause of virtue,” make her a fitting historical ally to contemporary advocates of reproductive justice who see women's rights to abortion and maternity as among the many important issues for women's health and reproductive justice.