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

Carolyn Kaster / AP

President Obama spoke Sunday morning at a campaign event in Concord, N.H.

Updated 1:30 a.m. ET With the hours quickly running out before voters render their verdict, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigned Sunday night in Pennsylvania, an eleventh-hour foray into a state that no GOP nominee has won since 1988.

Speaking to a chilled crowd in in Bucks County, a county which President Barack Obama carried in 2008 with 54 percent of the vote, Romney said, “We’re only two days away from a fresh start. Two days away from the first day of a new beginning.”

As he has for several stops in the last two days, Romney alluded at his Bucks County event to Obama’s comment on Friday that “voting’s the best revenge,” by saying, “In his closing argument, this is last week, President Obama asked his supporters to vote for revenge. For revenge. Instead, I ask the American people to vote for love of country."

He added, “He’s hoping we’ll settle. Americans don’t settle. We build, we aspire, we dream, we listen to that voice which says ‘we can do better’!”

Romney suggested to the crowd that they “reach across the street to that neighbor with the other guy’s yard sign. And we’ll reach across the aisle in Washington to people of good faith in the other party.”

In a sign of hope for Romney, Obama’s once-wide lead in the state appears to be slipping.

A new Allentown Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll Sunday showed Obama only 3 percentage points ahead of Romney, 49 percent to 46 percent. Another recent Pennsylvania survey, the Franklin & Marshall College poll, had Romney trailing Obama by only 4 percentage points among likely voters.

A Romney victory in the Keystone state, which has 20 electoral votes, would be one of the campaign’s biggest surprises.

Asked by a reporter Sunday whether it was a little too late for Romney to invest time campaigning in Pennsylvania, Romney senior advisor Kevin Madden said, "No, because this is one of those states that came into view right after the first debate. And as a result it just presented a great opportunity…. And here you are with an incumbent president under 50 (percent in polling). We're essentially tied. We're over-performing in many of these critical areas of the state, like the Philadelphia suburbs, areas like Scranton, southwest Pennsylvania. So we see it as a great opportunity and traveling there today we think can help make a difference. And this is actually the perfect time given that you're 48 hours from people making a decision, given that that they don't have early voting there.”

In addition to his Pennsylvania stop, Romney campaigned in Virginia, Florida, Des Moines, Iowa and Cleveland, Ohio.

After campaigning with former president Bill Clinton in New Hampshire Sunday morning, Obama touched down in Florida Sunday afternoon, then headed to Ohio for an evening rally, then to Colorado for a late appearance.

Romney reached out Sunday for the votes of independents who may be disenchanted with Obama, telling a crowd in Cleveland, “He promised to do so very much, but frankly he fell so very short.  He promised to be a post-partisan president, but he’s been most partisan, he’s been divisive, blaming, attacking, dividing.  And by the way, it’s not only Republicans that he refused to listen too, he also refused to listen to independent voices.”

Later in his speech Romney added another pitch to independents in Ohio: “Now so many of you look at the big debates in this country, and you don’t look at them as a Republican or as a Democrat, but first as an American….  You hoped that President Obama would live up to his promise to bring people together to solve big problems, but he hasn’t.  And I will.” 

Two hours earlier, only eight miles away from the Romney event, Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in Lakewood, Ohio, accusing Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin of playing "a con game" in the waning days of the campaign. "They're running away from what they believe." 

He appealed to Democrats to get out the vote in the state that decided the 2004 election and whose 18 electoral votes might well decide the election: “We need you Ohio. We need you. We win Ohio, we win this election.”

In a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Saturday, Romney was trailing Obama in Ohio 51 percent to 45 percent among likely voters, including those who were undecided yet leaning toward a candidate and those who voted early. The survey found that 3 percent were undecided.

Ryan was also campaigning Sunday in Ohio with a stop in Mansfield. As his first event Sunday Ryan, dressed in a Green Bay Packers jacket, arrived at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., to attend a tailgate party. Green Bay has ranked among the nation’s top presidential campaign TV ad media markets in recent weeks.

Meanwhile Obama opened his day by rallying Democrats in the small but vital battleground of New Hampshire which has only four electoral votes of the 270 needed to win the presidency. George W. Bush carried the state in 2000 but Democrat John Kerry won it in 2004 and Obama won it in 2008.

“Just as we did when Bill Clinton was president, we gotta ask the wealthiest to pay a little bit more so we can reduce the deficit and still invest in the things we need to grow,” Obama told a crowd in Concord, N.H.

The president told the crowd that on Saturday night he had consulted with his campaign advisers.

“I looked at David Plouffe, some of you know he’s my big campaign poo-bah smart guy. But Plouffe and I looked at each other and we said, ‘You know what. We’re no longer relevant. We’re props. Because what’s happened is that now the campaign falls on these 25-year old kids who are out there knocking on doors, making phone calls, and then we realized, you know, pretty soon after they do their jobs then they’re not relevant either because it’s now up to you.”

Romney will hold his final rally of the campaign Monday night in Manchester, N.H., underscoring again the significance of its four electoral votes.

In his first event Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa, Romney reminded his supporters how vital Iowa is to his campaign strategy: “I need Iowa – I need Iowa so we can win the White House and take back America, keep it strong, make sure we always remain the hope of the earth. I’m counting on you. Will you get the job done?”

A Des Moines Register Iowa poll released Sunday showed Romney trailing Obama 47 percent to 42 percent.

NBC News’s Carrie Dann, Garrett Haake and Ali Weinberg contributed to this story 

Vice President Joe Biden came out swinging against his Republican opponent, Paul Ryan, in Thursday’s lone vice presidential debate with a readily evident determination to avoid repeating President Barack Obama’s laconic performance in last week’s presidential debate.

Biden went at Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman who agreed to serve as GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate two months ago, from the very outset of a freewheeling debate in Danville, Ky., that saw the two candidates bicker frequently and differ sharply on policy and politics alike. 

Poll: Did the vice presidential debate influence who you will support in the election?

The vice president threw up his arms, laughed, scoffed and rolled his eyes in reaction to Ryan’s attacks – an unabashedly reaction to what Biden frequently called “malarkey” offered up by the House Budget Committee chairman in his opinion. 

The debate featured many of the fireworks that last Thursday’s initial debate between Obama and Romney had lacked. While Ryan stuck to familiar talking points used often by Romney on the stump, the vice presidential nominee hardly shrunk from engaging with Biden but largely engaging the vice president’s bombast. 

Related: Truth Squad: The vice presidential debate

The 90-minute affair at Centre College saw both Biden and Ryan playing to type. Biden was emotional and folksy but could barely contain his reactions to his opponent. Ryan maintained a more earnest demeanor, and often turned to statistics and anecdotes to make his case as the discussion shifted from events in Libya to Medicare and abortion. 

Biden’s response to Ryan’s proposals to reform Medicare into a “premium support” or voucher system was a typical refrain for the vice president: “Folks, use your common sense: who do you trust on this?” 

Ryan stuck largely to familiar and well-studied talking points used often by Romney and the GOP ticket on the campaign trail, but showed no interest in shrinking from the vice president’s bombast. The congressman stuck to his expertise as a budget wunderkind to explain reforms to entitlements and taxes and balancing the budget.  

Biden has been a frequent critic on the campaign trail of Ryan’s two budgets for their proposed changes to Medicare. The most recent version of the proposal would offer seniors a rebate to buy insurance on the private market, or opt into a Medicare program as it’s more traditionally known. 

“A voucher is you go to your mailbox, get a check, and buy something. Nobody's proposing that. Barack Obama four years ago running for president said if you don't have any fresh ideas, use stale tactics to scare voters,” Ryan said. “If you don't have a good record to run on, paint your opponent as someone people should run from – make a big election about small ideas.” 

Biden’s determination to be the aggressor shone through the debate, though, to his exchange with Ryan on the topic of taxes. As Ryan cited tax cuts sought by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, Biden seemingly attempted to channel the famous Lloyd Bensten line used against Dan Quayle by quipping, “Oh, now you're Jack Kennedy?” 

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan shake hands at the conclusion of the vice presidential debate in Danville, Ky.

The vice presidential debate set the stage for the two remaining contests between Obama and Romney left before Election Day. The first of those debates is on Tuesday, where Obama will hope to channel the energy displayed by his vice president this evening. 

Ryan, meanwhile, will join Romney for a joint rally on Friday in the all-important swing state of Ohio, where both men have concentrated much of their efforts lately in a bow toward the state’s central role in charting a path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.

Matt Sullivan / Getty Images

President Barack Obama speaks at Capital University on August 21, 2012 in Columbus, Ohio. President Obama began a two-day tour of Ohio and Nevada to discuss the choice in this election between two different visions of how to expand the economy.

Broadening his attack on Republicans’ plans to curb federal spending, President Barack Obama campaigning in Ohio Tuesday portrayed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, as intent on “gutting investments in education and science and infrastructure.”

Obama said in his speech at Capital University in Columbus, “Putting a college education within reach for working families just doesn’t seem to be a big priority for my opponent.”

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Judged by his ten-year budget blueprint which unlike Romney’s education proposal has actually been approved by one house of Congress, Ryan isn’t satisfied with the return the federal government is getting on its investment in education.

“While Federal spending on the Department of Education and related education programs has grown significantly over the past few decades, academic achievement has not seen a commensurate improvement,” Ryan said in the report accompanying his budget plan.

Ryan’s ten-year budget blueprint proposes to reduce some federal education outlays as part of its overall 12 percent cut in spending over ten years, for example consolidating and eliminating some of the 82 initiatives on improving the quality of teaching in public schools.

Under Obama, Congress has created a new tax break for higher education, the American Opportunity tax credit, as well as increasing the maximum size of Pell Grants by $900.

One focal point of the campaign debate has been what Ryan would do to Pell Grants, the single largest source of federal aid to low-income students for college education.

For the 2010-2011 academic year Pell Grants provided about $37 billion in aid to nearly 9 million students.

In his budget plan report, Ryan argued that “Pell Grants are the perfect example of promises that cannot be kept. The program is on an unsustainable path” due to legislation since 2007 including the Obama stimulus law that “made Pell Grants more generous than the Federal budget could afford.” He pointed out that the cost of the Pell Grant program has more than doubled since 2008, from $16 billion in 2008 to more than $36 billion in fiscal year 2013.

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While Obama has proposed a maximum Pell Grant award of $5,635 for 2013- 2014, Ryan’s plan proposes a maximum award of $5,550.

Ryan also wants to “ensure aid is targeted to the truly needy” by the changing the formula which the Department of Education uses to determine how much a student and his or her family can be expected to contribute toward the student’s college tuition.

Although some federal support for education is in the form of direct spending, such as Pell Grants, much of it is in the form of tax breaks, such as the Hope education tax credit (worth about $5 billion a year) and the deductibility of charitable contributions to educational institutions, worth about $6.5 billion.

A witness at last month’s Senate Finance Committee hearing on education, James White of Congress’s watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office, testified there isn’t enough data to know which of the tax breaks is most cost-effective in getting students to finish college or university.

When Sen. John Thune, R- S.D., asked White if Congress were forced to pick only one education tax break, which one should survive, White answered: “Part of the problem here is that we are spending tens of billions of dollars on these programs and we don’t know the answer to the question you are asking.”

Some economists and tax policy experts have questioned whether the tax breaks for higher education aren’t contributing to an inflationary spiral.

Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation testified to the Senate Finance Committee last month that federal subsidies for higher education are “fueling higher college costs by disconnecting student-consumers from the true cost of higher education. In turn, the benefits of these programs get capitalized into tuition costs because universities can boost tuitions without suffering the normal market backlash.”

(Hodge’s group aims for a “neutral” tax code that is designed simply to raise enough revenue for the government to function, without tax breaks for favored groups or industries.)

Obama noted in his speech in Ohio Tuesday that over the past two decades, tuition and fees at American colleges and universities have more than doubled.

“I put colleges and universities on notice: if they can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding they get from taxpayers will go down. We want to give them some incentive to start lowering tuition,” he said.

A question that for now is going mostly un-debated in all the 2012 speech-making is why America isn’t getting better outcomes from its education investments.

According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests students in 37 countries on their math, science and reading skills, average scores for U.S. 15-year old students were at about the average level for the entire group of 37 nations, but were below average in math.

Students in more than a dozen nations, including France, Finland, Australia, Japan, and Korea performed significantly better than American students on the PISA math test. Each of those nations also spends less per student than the United States does – on average about 30 percent less, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“When we invest in your future, we’re investing in America’s future,” Obama said to students Tuesday at his Ohio campaign stop. “Businesses are mobile in the 21^st century economy – they can locate anywhere – so they’re going to create jobs and they’re going to hire wherever they find the best educated, most highly skilled workers. And I don’t want them to have to look any further than right here in Columbus, right here in Ohio, right here in the United States of America.”

He also said, “The fact is that countries that out-educate us today – they’ll be able to outcompete us tomorrow.” And according to OECD and PISA data, most of those countries are spending less on education and getting more educated students than the United States is.