(CNN)It’s no secret that states have railed against abortion access in the years since 1973, when Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in America. Nearly 900 bills restricting abortions have passed in the past 20 years alone, according to the nation’s oldest abortion rights group.

Last year, states enacted dozens of new laws, including one in Texas that forced clinic closures across the state. A case challenging that law is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court.

What’s less known, though, is a similar state-by-state effort by abortion rights advocates to strengthen access to abortion services and birth control.

Partly that’s a result of the numbers: Judged strictly by the volume of bills introduced in state legislatures, the abortion rights movement simply hasn’t kept pace with efforts to chip away at Roe v. Wade.

In this current legislative session, nearly 250 anti-abortion measures are in the mix in more than three dozen states — twice the number of pending abortion rights bills, according to the Public Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that supports abortion rights.

Counting only those reproductive rights bills that deal directly with abortion — as opposed to contraception, for example — there are about four times as many anti-abortion measures.

Some would ban abortions after the first trimester, while others seek to get rid of them altogether. One measure would remove the buffer zones between protesters and patients outside clinics. There are bills to prohibit charitable donations to abortion providers, and others that require the distribution of medically disputed information.

In 2015 alone, 41 anti-abortion measures were enacted in 22 states, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America. Seven of those measures passed in a single state: Arkansas.

A new playbook
Part of what has driven the proliferation of anti-abortion legislation is a playbook put out by Americans United for Life. “Defending Life,” first published in 2006, includes model legislation that state lawmakers cut, paste and use.
This tactic has resulted in legislation requiring delays and state-mandated counseling. Bans on funding and referrals. Regulations that prompt clinic closures — and result in “abortion deserts” in places such as Texas.

To answer this push, the Public Leadership Institute recently released its own compilation of prototype bills: “A Playbook for Abortion Rights,” a guide for policymakers on state and local levels.

Aimee Arrambide is a co-editor of this resource. A lawyer by training, the Austin, Texas- based mother of two is a reproductive rights policy specialist and a self-professed policy wonk.

She shares this playbook with pride; it was a labor of love that she and her colleagues saw as long overdue.
“They’re out-introducing our side, which is why we created the playbook,” she says. “We wanted to make it easier for legislators to introduce these bills.”

These bills include measures to protect and expand access to abortions, to provide full access to birth control and to guarantee medically accurate health care information — thereby, for example, barring crisis pregnancy centers, many of which are funded by states, from deceiving women.

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Source: Jessica Ravitz, CNN.com