Personally I am somewhat nihilistic on the issue and personally don't see any life as intrinsically important or special. Which is why I am all for invitro-fertilization being used to create stem cells for research. However, I do also recognize the emotional component to the abortion issue, and though I am completely pro-choice, I realize it is often the best solution to a difficult and painful situation for all parties concerned.
I would say there are two main components jealousy/ misogyny and compartmentalization, generally at the same time. For most pro-lifers, in their mind, abortion is murder, and that is where the thought process ends. In another compartment is things like how the mother may die, and rape and incest and living standards and kids in orphanages. Unfortunately those thoughts never connect to the abortion is murder compartment. Even when you point it out, to their face, the compartmentalization of their mind only processes one fact at a time.
Think about how that one republican running for governor said that abortion in cases of rape should be banned because if the woman becomes pregnant it is gods intention. To him the act of the rape and the conception of the child are two completely separate compartments, and hence why even when pressed about it he fails to connect the two and realize that for god to have intended the pregnancy means god intended the rape.
Then comes in the misogyny and jealousy. To much of the pro-life crowd with their compartmentalization, assume that any woman who is getting an abortion is a slut. They see it in this strange, "the only time one can have sex is to produce a baby" thing. As a result they see a woman who must have been having a huge amount of sex for fun, and wants to murder her child so she can continue having fun. The number of times a pro-lifer has directly said "if she was not ready to look after a baby she shouldn't have had sex" regardless of all other circumstances that get brought up.
It is a naive thinking that fails to realize that both men and women from their teenage years are highly sexual beings. I would even say that sex it pretty much our prime directive in life and is certainly the basis for a significant amount of what we do. In an animalistic world we would be trying to have as many children as possible from sex as often as possible to help our tribe and species survive, that's why it is an innate desire and drive. However in our modern world that drive still exists but the circumstances are vastly different. Their minds have not realized that sex is still a major driving force, but rampant procreation is now no longer needed.
There is also the strongly hypocritical aspect that plays in with the jealously. As has been mentioned already is how the only moral abortion is their abortion and all other woman should just go jump. However there are also two kinds of hypocracy here. On one hand is the whole "if they didn't want a baby they shouldn't have sex" part despite the fact that they themselves often have sex and use contraceptive and in those unpleasant cases go for abortions themselves. The call the woman a slut despite her actions being nearly identical to their own. Then you get the group that are secretly jealous of the women. They see someone having an abortion as having lots of sex, and they are jealous. They have this feeling that if they should suffer and not have sex, then so should all other women, and they try to use abortion bans as a deterrent. Of course that completely ignores that it wouldn't be a real deterrent, but they think it would.
This is my perspective into the mind of a pro-lifer. I think the compartmentalization aspect plays a far bigger role than the misogyny and jealousy, but I believe that both are important factors to the psychology.