Hi there! Great question. Post-mortem photography was popular both in Europe and the USA until about the 1910s. In my opinion, this was a natural transition from mourning portraits, which were commonly painted before the advent of photography. Both have the same purpose - to comfort the surviving loved ones by keeping a part of the deceased preserved in visual memory.

I am not aware of any particular examples where an individual was against this tradition while it was still prevalent. It was a very different mindset back then. Death commonly happened in the home rather than in hospitals, plus it was much more common, sudden, and unpredictable. People were much more comfortable with death, as it happened much more frequently and in closer quarters. This was certainly a factor that lead to the rise of Spiritualism.

We actually still practice post-mortem photography in private settings today (oustide of the context of criminal investigation photography), the most common situation being a photograph of parents with their stillborn child.

I understand the reactions of people today, since this photos contain many elements that are unfamiliar to them - from being black and white to the outdated fashion and the overall uncomfortable feeling that they evoke because they are so closely tied to death. This is not something that we are comfortable with in modern society, but something that the Victorians were intimately familiar with and accepting of, even if not comfortable.

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