The abortion debates of the 1980s and 1990s came to focus on the problem of ‘late’ abortions above all else. Recent advances in medical technology meant that premature babies were surviving at earlier stages of gestation, and many people had come to see the 28-week upper limit for legal abortion as outdated. Advances in foetal imaging technology had also resulted in a proliferation of images of the foetus, used by opponents of abortion as ‘evidence’ of foetal personhood. This ‘technicization’ of abortion was one of the most important developments in abortion rhetoric during this period (McNeil, 1991: 157). The debates took place on the watch of the government of Margaret Thatcher that was increasingly coming to be seen as ‘uncaring’ due to its cuts to the NHS and failure to provide high-tech facilities (1991: 150). These cuts meant that those seeking abortions on the NHS were faced with many difficulties and delays; in this sense, ‘late’ abortions were to an extent a creation of the system. However, many of the Bills introduced in this period would have ‘solved’ the problem by policing abortion patients, not the NHS, more closely (1991: 150) (see Table 5.1).

Academic accounts note that the debates took place in a new moral climate involving heightened fears about sexuality, where abortion was viewed as a symptom of moral decline. These fears became evident in the idea that women might suffer from ‘post-abortion syndrome’ – the implication being that a price must be paid for separating women's sexuality from reproduction (McNeil, 1991: 157– 8; Lee, 2003: 85). Such accounts are indicative of the broader backlash against feminism taking place in the 1980s and early 1990s. According to Susan Faludi's influential book on the subject, the backlash had two elements: first, attempts to halt or turn back the tide on advances in women's equality; and, second, attempts to blame feminism itself for women's unhappiness (Faludi, 1991: 9– 10).

For Faludi, the anti-abortion movement in the US was an exemplar of backlash politics. Abortion and birth control were seen as threatening, as they gave women the freedom to have sex on their own terms (1991: 412), and were therefore subject to antifeminist attack.