Abortion Rights and Mill's "Subjection of Women"

"All that was most striking and profound in what was written by me belongs to my wife." John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

In 1869, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill published an influential pro-feminist essay called The Subjection of Women. It remains highly relevant today, especially with the recent threat to abortion rights in the United States. [Image: Mill, 1873, by Frederic Watts]

Mill did not address the issue of abortion in The Subjection of Women. But he would almost surely have favored what today is called "reproductive freedom." In an earlier work, On Liberty (1859), he had declared the principle of bodily sovereignty: "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." Twentieth century feminists translated that into "Our Bodies, Ourselves."

It is significant that Mill acknowledged the influence on his ideas of his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, and also his stepdaughter, Helen Taylor. He was not lecturing women, but learning from them, and his message was directed at men more than women. [Images: Harriet Taylor Mill, unknown painter, National Portrait Gallery, and photo of Helen Taylor with Mill. Harriet died in 1858.]

In 1867 Mill presented a petition to Parliament calling for women's suffrage. He did so at the request of two women, Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Emily Davies. The first draft of the petition was written by his stepdaughter, Helen. It failed but got the issue into the political discussion at the highest level.  

What was Mill's message in The Subjection of Women? It was the then outrageous claim that women were very likely the equals of men in most spheres of life, and superior in some. And the world would be a happier place if women had equal rights to men. 

Mill rejected the traditional view that it was women's nature to be limited to the role of wives, mothers, and housekeepers, obedient to their male superiors. In fact, he denied that anyone could justify such limitations on the grounds of something as nebulous as women's natural constitution. What society considered "natural" was only what was "customary;" that is, what they were accustomed to.

Women had always been kept in an "unnatural state" of subjection to men, preventing their free development. Their "nature" had been "distorted and disguised." No one could predict what women's nature would be if they were "left to choose its direction as freely as men's." What society calls the nature of women is an "eminently artificial thing -- the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others." 

If "artificial" restrictions on female development were removed, it might be found that there would be no "material difference" in their "character and capacities" compared to men. The only way to find out would be to remove the restrictions, to let women choose their own way, and see what happens. 

Such an "experiment" was not a mere intellectual exercise. It would materially affect the future of humanity. The subjection of women suppressed the talents of one-half of the human race. Who could tell what women, freed of traditional restraints, might do to improve the world? No one could find out what anyone was capable of except by letting them try.

The existing relationship between men and women was one of power. Men had it, women were subject to it. Fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands -- all had the power to control the women in their lives. 

Mill likened marriage to the master-slave relationship. Chattel slavery had been abolished, but the law left married women in bondage to their husbands. He admitted that wives were generally treated better than slaves, but argued that their legal position was, if anything, worse than that of a slave. Wives had virtually no protection for their property, their aspirations, or their bodies. The law treated them as children, or worse, imbeciles. [Image: Suffragette Poster, c. 1910]

Defenders of the status quo objected that good men did not abuse their power over women. Mill conceded the point but insisted that laws and institutions needed to be designed for men who were not good.

Women had no power and no legal protection from abusive husbands. The law in effect, left "the victim still in the power of the executioner." It was "contrary to reason and experience" to expect that women in such a position would be safe from "brutality."

Mill did not spell out what he meant by brutality, but it is not hard to imagine the possibilities, given our current experience of spousal abuse, both physical and psychological. 

Mill's arguments in The Subjection of Women are rooted in utilitarianism, a philosophy he had learned as a child from its founder, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and his own father, James Mill. 

Bentham had famously argued that human laws and institutions should be judged according to the principle of utility. They should be favored or rejected according to the extent to which they promoted "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."  

Mill rejected parts of Bentham's philosophy and made it more human. Bentham had tried to develop a calculus of happiness ("the felicific calculus"), to determine mathematically what would contribute to the greatest happiness. It did not work, but it did lead one of Bentham's disciples, Charles Babbage, to develop the principle of the computer.

Mill centered happiness in the mind of the individual. It was not possible for anyone to decide what was best for others. There was "no means by which anyone else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone."

In On Liberty, Mill argued that society has no right to limit individual freedom except to prevent harm to others (The Harm Principle). Would Mill have argued that abortion should be prohibited because of the harm to the fetus, or allowed because forcing a woman to carry a baby to term violates the principle of bodily sovereignty, and may harm the woman? 

Because he never directly addressed this issue, we can never know. But I'm confident he would have been on the side of pro-choice. 

Further reading: 

J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869) and On Liberty (1859). See also his Utilitarianism (1863), for a full discussion of his philosophical outlook. 

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