AUSTIN, Texas -- New Mexico and Colorado are likely to become major destinations for Texas women seeking an abortion if the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe versus Wade decision.

Aimee Arrambide, executive director for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas said women there already had a preview of what future abortion access could look like when the governor and attorney general used COVID-19 quarantine measures to block access to abortion care under the guise of public health.

"So for about a month, abortion was completely inaccessible in Texas," Arrambide explained. "And what we saw is an increase in Texans traveling to states where it was more accessible, like New Mexico or Colorado."

Ten states, including Texas, currently have abortion "trigger laws," meaning abortion bans or restrictions that are unenforceable now but designed to go into effect if constitutional precedent changes.

Brandi Collins-Calhoun, senior movement engagement associate for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, noted abortion rights activists across the nation projected a post-Roe world since the appointment of anti-abortion justice Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We've been using language around when Roe gets overturned because it's something that has always seemed inevitable to us," Collins-Calhoun remarked. "But now it's certain that it's going to happen."

Arrambide contended the Texas Legislature is controlled by anti-abortion legislators who don't acknowledge what severe restrictions will mean for women's access to health care.

"One in four people will have an abortion in our lifetime, but because of the stigma surrounding abortion, that's not really front and center," Arrambide asserted. "The anti-abortion people use the word abortion four-to-one times more than our side does, and I think that helps contribute to the stigma."

The Texas Legislature is set to convene mid-January, and a Senate committee previewed bills this week it plans to introduce including a "heartbeat bill" to ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Limiting women's access to abortion and other reproductive health care can have a devastating impact on state economies.

According to new data from the Institute for Women's Policy Research, restrictions on the books in Nebraska cost the state $1 billion annually in lost income, productivity and state revenues.

Andi Curry Grubb, Nebraska state director for Planned Parenthood North Central States, said women who cannot get care face economic challenges that can last a lifetime.

"Having access to safe and legal abortion, along with contraception and comprehensive sex education, all of those things together really allow people to better plan their futures and have control over their lives," Grubb asserted.

Nationwide, abortion bans and other restrictions are estimated to cost $105 billion per year.

Grubb pointed out while Nebraska doesn't look like Texas on paper yet -- where abortions are now banned after six weeks, before most women even realize they are pregnant -- the impacts of restrictions passed by lawmakers over the last decade have chipped away at a woman's right to access reproductive health care.

Nicole Mason, President and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, said states with laws that restrict access to abortion, by imposing waiting periods or outright bans, disproportionately impact low-income women and women of color.

She explained restrictions hurt women by reducing their labor force participation, cutting into their earnings and increasing turnover.

"Lost earnings for women, women who have to cross state lines to access services," Mason explained. "For women, especially lower-income women, who may not have access to paid sick leave, or even health insurance, this also exacerbates the economic cost to them."

Grubb noted since the Texas law went into effect, people across Nebraska have come out in support of the right to safe and legal abortion.

"And we know that most Americans, including most Nebraskans, support access to this kind of care," Grubb stressed. "It's health care, that's all it is."

CONCORD, N.H. -- Reproductive-health advocates are calling on Gov. Chris Sununu to meet with them about the ban on abortions after 24 weeks, which is currently in both the Senate and House versions of the state budget.

A coalition of groups held a demonstration outside the State House before delivering a letter to the governor, requesting he join a forum at a time and place of his choosing, before he signs the budget into law.

Josie Pinto, co-founder and executive director of the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, which helps patients struggling to access an abortion get the funds they need, said the budget is not the place to pass an abortion ban.

"I just think that this law is one more barrier that's going to stand between a person and potentially life-saving medical care, and it just should not be on a politician to make that decision," Pinto argued. "That is a decision that needs to be between the doctor and a patient, so that's why we want to talk to him."

Pinto added abortions after 24 weeks are extremely rare, difficult to get and costly. She noted one call the fund received was for a 24-week abortion, and the quoted price was $8,800.

Dr. Nick Perencevich, a retired surgeon from Boston, shared his experience at the State House event as a physician training in the 1970s, tending to patients who were suffering complications from unsafe abortions that were not legal before Roe v. Wade.

"Criminalization does not stop abortions," Perencevich asserted. "They're going to happen. They're just going to happen in a very unsafe environment. The abortions go away with good family planning, not with restrictive legislation that penalizes doctors and patients."

Pinto added a majority of Granite Staters support access to abortion. More than 65% of New Hampshire residents believe it should be legal in all or most cases.

"I think, unfortunately, a lot of people don't know that this is happening right now, and I think if they did we would see a lot more vocal opposition," Pinto contended. "So I'm really just trying to educate people that this is happening, and through our state budget, of all things."

ST. LOUIS - Lawmakers in Congress are reintroducing the Women's Health Protection Act, which would ensure a pregnant person's right to access - and a doctor's right to provide - abortions without adding restrictions that are medically unnecessary.

Angie Postal, vice president for education, policy and community engagement at the Advocates for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said Missouri has 44 regulations on abortion services. One requires a patient to make two appointments, three days apart. Since Planned Parenthood in St. Louis is the state's only abortion provider, the rule requires finding transportation, child care and time off work not just once, but twice.

"The Women's Health Protection Act would protect those people from these medically unnecessary political restrictions that have nothing to do with people's health," Postal said.

Recent polling from Hart Research Associates showed that more than 60% of voters nationally support a nationwide safeguard against abortion bans and medically unnecessary restrictions. That includes nearly 80% of Black voters and more than 65% of Latino voters.

Black, Brown and Indigenous women are more likely to face health risks during pregnancy and childbirth, largely because of racial disparities in the medical system. Danielle Hurd-Wilson, interim deputy director of field and programs for the group Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, said every person should be able to make their own decisions about whether and when to become a parent.

"The violent legacy of restrictions on reproductive health care perpetuates white supremacy and anti-Black racism," Hurd-Wilson said. "It impedes bodily autonomy and it compounds harm from members of communities that have historically experienced barriers to health care."

The bill's reintroduction comes as the Supreme Court plans to hear a case next year about a Mississippi state law that bans abortion after 15 weeks, a time period in which women might not know they're pregnant. It's a case that is seen by many as another challenge to the standards set in 1973 in the Roe vs. Wade ruling.