Sarah Cole / AL.com via AP file

People opposing and supporting abortion rights demonstrate outside the Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville in February.

When Virginia approved restrictions that could force abortion clinics to close, it joined a rapidly growing list of states that are energizing social conservatives by making it more difficult for women to terminate pregnancies.

Four other states have tightened abortion restrictions in less than two months — part of what abortion-rights groups say is an alarming trend since Republicans swept the 2010 elections. The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday called the Virginia restrictions “excessive and inappropriate.”

Anti-abortion groups see evidence of a break between the relatively stable politics of abortion at the national level and the action in the states.

“There’s a fundamental culture change going on,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, which supports anti-abortion political candidates. She called the recent restrictions “common-sense, common-ground” measures.

“The middle ground is exactly where most people are,” she said in an interview. “They want to see clinic regulation. They want to see parental notification. They don’t like late-term abortions.”

Arkansas legislators, overriding the Democratic governor, banned abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Kansas legislature blocked certain tax breaks for abortion providers and declared that life begins at fertilization.

Julie Bennett / AL.com via AP

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, back left, Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey, second left, and others applaud as Gov. Robert Bentley signs an abortion clinic regulation bill on April 9.

Alabama enacted a law last week requiring abortion doctors to have permission to perform the procedure at local hospitals, challenging a practice under which clinics bring in physicians from out of town.

And in late March, the governor of North Dakota signed the toughest abortion law in the nation — a ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, a restriction that even some abortion opponents say is designed to provoke a court challenge.

“Although the likelihood of this measure surviving a court challenge remains in question, this bill is nevertheless a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade,” Gov. Jack Dalrymple said.

In Virginia, the Board of Health on Friday voted 11-2 to require abortion clinics to meet the same architectural standards required of new hospitals. Abortion-rights groups say the standard is clearly designed to be so costly that clinics will have no choice but to close.

“This is a blatant attempt to impose a backdoor ban on safe, legal abortion care,” said Caroline O’Shea, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, which supports abortion rights.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research group that studies reproductive health, reported this week that 694 state provisions on reproduction have been introduced this year, about half of them to restrict abortion.

Among those are provisions in 14 states seeking to ban abortion before the fetus is viable. In recent years, the institute said, lawmakers had focused on regulating abortion, such as requiring ultrasounds for pregnant women.

“Legislators this year seem to be focusing on banning abortion outright,” it said.

Grisly Philadelphia case
Conservative bloggers, including at RedState and National Review, have lashed out this week at national media organizations for not paying enough attention to the gruesome trial of a Philadelphia abortion provider accused of killing seven late-term fetuses after they were born alive.

The doctor, Kermit Gosnell, faces the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors say he killed some of the fetuses by plunging scissors into their necks and snipping the spinal cord.

Stephen Massof, an unlicensed medical school graduate who worked at the clinic, testified last week that women were sometimes given medicine to speed deliveries and “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.”

The accelerated restrictions on abortion come at a time when Americans have deeply mixed feelings about the procedure.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday found that 52 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal with some or no exceptions, compared with 45 percent who believe it should be legal most or all of the time.

Those figures have been roughly unchanged over the past decade, although the same poll found in January that only 44 percent believed it should be illegal with some or no exceptions.

Still, that January poll, timed at the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established a limited right to abortion, found that seven in 10 Americans wanted it to stand, the highest figure since 1989.

Giving ground
The state restrictions have been enacted while national Republicans have given ground on other cultural issues.

Two Republican senators have announced support for gay marriage. Republicans are working with Democrats on a way to establish some path to citizenship for undocumented workers.

And on Thursday, 16 Republican senators joined most Democrats to overcome a threatened filibuster on a bill that would expand criminal background checks for gun sales and toughen penalties for illegal sales.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican vice presidential nominee last year, told an anti-abortion group on Thursday that Republicans “need to work with people who consider themselves pro-choice.”

He also said: “We don’t want a country where abortion is simply outlawed. We want a country where it isn’t even considered.”

Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, pointed out that three dozen governorships will be decided in the 2014 election, and suggested the restrictions passed over the past few weeks would wake up voters.

“What we’re seeing here is an extreme position about women’s rights that was soundly rejected in the 2012 election at the federal level,” she told MSNBC. “These governors should be watching very, very carefully.”

Related:

Kansas lawmakers pass sweeping anti-abortion legislation

Abortion worker at trial: 'It was literally a beheading'

North Dakota governor signs toughest anti-abortion package in US

Arkansas lawmakers approve toughest abortion limits in nation

 A vast storm system that spawned tornadoes and killed three people marched toward the East Coast on Friday, delivering spring snow and ice to New England and promising to drench some of the country’s most populous cities.

On Thursday, storms tore through the Great Plains, Midwest and South. Tornadoes were reported in Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi, and tens of thousands of people were left without power.

Storms blew the steeple off a church and killed someone in Mississippi, and a utility worker was electrocuted repairing damage in Missouri. Earlier in the week, a Nebraska woman died trying to trudge through a vicious snowstorm from her car to her home.

In Shuqualak, Miss., Kathy Coleman said she was outside her home Thursday, signing for a delivery of dialysis medication, when the storm hit. The deliveryman rushed her into the house, and the two of them huddled with the housekeeper in the bathroom.

“All I could hear was trees breaking and falling and glass,” she said. “He started praying and I started praying. Thank God he was here.”

Rogelio V. Solis / AP

Residents begin cleanup of debris from homes hit by a tornado in Shuqualak, Miss.

More coverage from The Weather Channel

Umbrellas bloomed at the Masters golf tournament in Georgia, and elsewhere in the state roofs were ripped off buildings and wrapped around trees like pieces of paper, one witness said.

In Rome, Ga., a wooden beam shot through a house 3 feet from where Tim Crouch was standing.

“I’m lucky,” he said. “I’m sure there are some folks out there who can’t go back to their home.”

On Friday, the system still had remarkable reach — bending from the Canadian border in snowy North Dakota through the Great Lakes and punishing the East Coast with storms all the way to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Bob Gathany / al.com via AP

Lightning strikes downtown Huntsville, Ala., as strong storms moved into Madison County Thursday.

Tornado watches were in effect in eastern Virginia and North Carolina. Parts of New Hampshire were expected to get 3 to 5 inches of snow, according to meteorologists for The Weather Channel. New York City, Boston and Washington were expecting heavy rain.

The storm was also having some positive effects, bringing much-needed rain to drought-stricken farmland in the Midwest.

Heavy rain on Friday morning even helped extinguish a wildfire that burned across 3,400 acres on the west side of the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., according to a Marine Corps press release. 

Forecasters said a similar storm pattern was taking shape for next week, probably Tuesday through Thursday, packing both snow and severe thunderstorms as it plows east.

The Rockies, parts of the Plains and Upper Midwest could get snow again, The Weather Channel said, and severe storms could rip through the southern Plains and the Mississippi Valley.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 12, 2013 8:38 AM EDT

Danny Johnston / Danny Johnston / AP, file

Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Benton, right, listens as Artee Williams, director of Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, speaks at a meeting of the Senate Committee on Public Health, Welfare and Labor at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark — The Republican-led Arkansas state Senate approved a measure on Monday that would require random drug testing of Arkansas residents who receive state unemployment benefits — a plan that the state's Democratic governor said could violate federal law.

The bill, which passed on a 25-5 vote and now goes to a House committee, could affect about 85,000 Arkansas residents currently receiving unemployment benefits.

If the measure becomes law, those seeking unemployment benefits would have to sign a waiver and allow for random drug testing. Those who refuse to sign or who test positive for drugs would not be entitled to benefits.

Some other states have adopted measures making a person discharged from work for failing an employer's drug test on the job ineligible to collect employment benefits, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In Texas, Governor Rick Perry has a proposal in that state's legislature that would require drug tests for both unemployment and welfare recipients. But it has not yet passed a chamber.

The Arkansas bill's sponsor, Republican state Senator Jeremy Hutchinson, said that his measure was "more of an enforcement mechanism than anything else."

"Arkansas law states that you have to be adequately seeking employment, and by that you have to pass a drug test since so many employers require drug tests," Hutchinson said.

He said that 80 percent of the state's employers require a drug test. The unemployment testing, Hutchinson said, would cost the state less than $30,000 a year to administer.

Rita Sklar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, said the group plans to fight the measure if it becomes law. Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, also has issues with the bill.

"We have concerns about whether the bill will put us in violation of the federal unemployment laws administered by the U.S. Department of Labor," said Matt DeCample, Beebe's spokesman. "There are also continued concerns as to whether the cost of implementing such a program would produce any real savings in offset."

An accident at an Arkansas nuclear power plant at 7:45 a.m. local time resulted in the death of one worker and left three injured, but did not cause radiation and it is not a public health risk, according to the Arkansas Department of Health.

"There was no nuclear release of any kind," said Ed Barham, a spokesman for the Arkansas Health Department.

The accident took place in Russellville, a city with 28,000 residents, about 81 miles from Little Rock.

“There is no danger to the public,” said Entergy Operations, Inc, owner of the plant, Arkansas Nuclear One, in a statement.

KTHV, a Little Rock television station, reported that residents heard a large boom at the time of the incident.

According to Entergy, part of generator fell as it was being moved and the plant automatically shut down.

The injured workers have been transported to a nearby hospital.

“Our greatest sympathy is with the family and friends of the employee who lost his life, and with those who sustained injuries,” said Jeff Forbes, executive vice president and chief nuclear officer.

The accident is classified as an "unusual event," the lowest of four emergency classifications by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Entergy said.

The company delivers electricity to 2.8 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, has annual revenues of more than $10 billion and has approximately 15,000 employees.

Arkansas Nuclear One provides 30 percent of the state’s energy, according to the plant’s website.

AP Photo/Danny Johnston

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe is interviewed at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., on Monday, March 4, 2013, after vetoing legislation that would have banned abortions 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

Arkansas' House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected the governor's veto of a controversial bill that would make abortions illegal after 12 weeks of pregnancy, thus setting up the most restrictive ban on the procedure nationwide.

The House vote of 56-33 followed Senate approval on Tuesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto of SB 134, or the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act, which enforces a ban on abortion earlier in pregnancy than any other state now does.

Moments before the vote, Rep. Ann V. Clemmer, who said she was pro-life, told fellow representatives they should give the right to be born to babies in Arkansas and that life was “to be protected not only by a third party but from the mother herself.”

The state already has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. after the Republican-led Legislature last week overrode Beebe's veto of a similar bill that set the legal abortion threshold at 20 weeks' gestation — two to four weeks earlier than most states.

That law took effect immediately but the new measure won't until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns in mid-May.

Under the new measure, a medical professional would be banned from performing an abortion on a woman who is 12 weeks or more pregnant and where a fetal heartbeat has been detected (women seeking an abortion would have to undergo an exam of the fetus to see if there is a detectible heartbeat). Cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s life is endangered, are among those exempt from the law.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the law imposed the most severe ban in the country and the strictest limit on the procedure since the U.S. territory of Guam tried to halt all abortions in 1990. The group “will challenge this dangerous and unconstitutional law in court,” the group’s executive director, Anthony D. Romero, said in a statement.

Talcott Camp, deputy director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said before the vote that it was an “unconstitutional and grotesque invasion” into private medical decisions.

“It’s a power grab by politicians. They are just looking to intrude on and take away a decision that is really for a woman and her family and her doctor, and that is true as a constitutional matter. It’s also true as a moral matter and as a matter of public health and just what’s right,” she said. “This is not a decision for politicians to make.”

The Supreme Court has said viability of a fetus has to be left up to doctors, Camp said, adding that it was unconstitutional for state legislatures to set a number of weeks for when abortion could be banned.

Beebe, a Democrat, said in his veto letter on Monday that the “adoption of blatantly unconstitutional laws can be very costly to the taxpayers of our state,” and that Arkansas’ “interest in protecting fetal life is simply not strong enough at such point to trump the constitutional rights of the mother.”

Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Beebe, said Wednesday after the vote: "The governor made his case very plainly in his veto letter, laid out the reasons why we feel the bill’s unconstitutional, and now it looks like it will be up to the courts to make the final decision.”

Women who want to end a pregnancy face a growing number of roadblocks in many parts of the country 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many state restrictions on abortion with Roe v. Wade.

Last year, 19 states enacted a total of 43 provisions limiting access to abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit that aims to advance reproductive health and abortion rights. While that was half the number that went into effect the previous year, it was the second-highest number since 1985.

Related:
Arkansas governor vetoes ban on abortions after 12 weeks
40 years after Roe v. Wade, more states restricting abortion

NBC News’ Tracy Connor contributed to this report.

Arkansas' State Senate on Tuesday rebuffed the governor's veto of a controversial bill that would make abortions illegal after 12 weeks of pregnancy, voting to override his decision on what would be the most restrictive ban on the procedure nationwide.

The Senate voted 20-14, just one day after Gov. Mike Beebe vetoed SB 134, also known as the "fetal heartbeat bill," NBC affiliate KARK reported.

Beebe has called the legislation "blatantly" unconstitutional and said it would "impose a ban on a woman's right to choose an elective, nontherapeutic abortion well before viability," the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

The Arkansas House must still vote to complete the override, the newspaper reported.

The state already has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. after the Republican-led Legislature last week overrode Beebe's veto of a similar bill that set the legal abortion threshold at 20 weeks' gestation — two to four weeks earlier than most states.

That law took effect immediately but, if the House also overrides the governor's veto, the new measure wouldn't take effect until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns later this month or in early April.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas has already said it would sue if the 12-week law goes into effect.

Related: 40 years after Roe v. Wade, more states restricting abortion

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, signed into law on Monday a bill that allows concealed-carry permit holders to take their weapons into churches.

The Church Protection Act would allow individual places of worship to decide whether to allow concealed handguns and who could carry them. Churches that take no action will remain off-limits to guns.

The Republican-controlled House passed the bill 85-8 with bipartisan support last week. The measure previously passed the Republican-controlled Senate 28-4.

The law takes place immediately.

Gun advocates praised Beebe for his action.

"It is crucial to protecting the freedom of religion and property rights," said Nicholas Stehle, a member of the board of directors of the advocacy group Arkansas Carry.

"The state has no business meddling in the affairs of our churches," Stehle said.

Arkansas joins a handful of other states, including South Carolina, Wyoming and Louisiana, that allow guns in churches, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.