Abortion opponents say

The most high-profile laws, which face legal challenges that could eventually test the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected — as early as six weeks.

Advocates say that if the Supreme Court upholds the latest restrictions, it will become more common for women to seek an abortion in another state.

“The intent of these lawmakers is to completely outlaw abortion and force people not to have abortions. But in reality, it pushes people farther and wider to access the care they want and need,” said Quita Tinsley, deputy director of Access Reproductive Care Southeast.

ARC Southeast is part of the National Network of Abortion Funds, a collective of 70 abortion support groups for women in six Southeast states. Some provide money to women to pay for abortions, while others also help with transportation, lodging and child care.

A third of women calling the group’s hotline for help end up traveling out of state for abortions, Tinsley said. Many choose Georgia because it’s convenient to get to and considered slightly less restrictive than some other states in the South.

In Georgia, which has a mandatory waiting period, a woman is not required to come to a clinic twice, like they are in Tennessee. But if Georgia’s new fetal heartbeat law survives a court challenge, it would have one of the earliest state-imposed abortion bans.

That would force many women to go even farther from where they live to terminate their pregnancies.

VASHA HUNT/AP Hevan Lunsford, who found out when she was pregnant that the baby was severely underdeveloped and had only half of a heart, felt the only way to guarantee her son would not suffer would be to end the pregnancy.

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN/AP Joan Lamunyon Sanford, of New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, says her group is doing what faith communities have always done: “Care for the stranger and welcome the traveler.”

WHITNEY CURTIS/FOR LA TIMES