The modern anti-abortion feminist movement cites precedent in the 19th century; the movement itself began to take shape in the early to mid-1970s with the founding of Feminists for Life (FFL) in the United States and Women for Life in Great Britain amid legal changes in those nations which widely permitted abortion.
Anti-abortion feminists consider the legal option of abortion to "support anti-motherhood social attitudes and policies and limit respect for women's citizenship".
They also suggest that women have been primed and socialized to believe they cannot be successful if they experience an unanticipated pregnancy and that our society continues to reflect patriarchal standards that use men as the "basic human".
[9] Research from the Guttmacher Institute shows that the majority of women who have abortions seek the procedure for personal, financial, vocational, or family planning purposes rather than under coercion from third-parties.
[10] By positing the existence of a post-abortion syndrome mental condition, which is not medically recognized, anti-abortion feminists reframe opposition to abortion in terms of protecting women's public health.
[13][14][15] The Revolution, a newspaper published by Susan B. Anthony and Stanton, carried letters, essays, and editorials debating many issues of the day, including articles decrying "child murder" and "infanticide".
[17] By way of criticism, sociologists Nicole Beisel and Tamara Kay have written that White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) in the United States were worried that continued abortions by their kind would endanger their position at the top of society's hierarchy, especially fearing the influx of Irish Catholics, but also concerned about African Americans, and describe Anthony and Stanton as part of this reactionary racial stance.
[19] Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Celeste Claflin, argued that abortion clinics would go out of business if voluntary motherhood was widely practiced.