The legacy of the conservative media's long campaign to push abortion myths and turn a blind eye to the opinions of medical experts is being felt in 43 states, where Republican legislation restricting abortion access has surged in the first quarter of 2015.

According to an April 2 report from the Guttmacher Institute, the first few months of 2015 have seen 332 provisions to restrict access to abortion introduced in the legislatures of nearly every state. The anti-choice measures included many provisions roundly condemned by the medical experts, including measures to restrict abortion services at 20 weeks of pregnancy and during the second trimester, as well as bills “seeking to impose targeted regulations on abortion providers” (or TRAP laws). The high number of abortion-related state-level legislation introduced so far in 2015 follows a trend of Republican-led state legislatures sweeping in a record number of abortion restrictions following electoral gains in 2010:

Conservative media have long championed the anti-abortion rhetoric behind such legislation, ignoring medical experts who point out such measures are based on medically inaccurate or outright false information, and that these regulations harm women.

In January, after House Republicans dropped plans to vote on a bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, several conservative media figures lashed out, attacking female members who objected to the bill and dismissing the legitimate health concerns experts say lead women to choose the procedure.

And despite women's health experts like the American College of Obstetricians (ACOG) and Gynecologists statements that TRAP measures such as hospital admitting privileges are “medically unnecessary” and "jeopardize the health of women," conservative media nonetheless asserted that such restrictions “ensure safety” and deemed those who oppose them “executioners.” They have even pushed discredited claims of a “post-abortion syndrome,” the idea that choosing to have an abortion causes subsequent mental illness, ignoring experts at the American Psychological Association who make clear that there is “no evidence” that a single abortion “causes mental health problems.”

Now a new crop of medically inaccurate falsehoods perpetrated by conservative media are threatening to translate into even more anti-abortion legislation. In both Arkansas and Arizona, new laws in the state will force doctors to tell patients that abortions can be “reversed” mid-procedure. But as The Washington Post reported, “abortion-rights groups and many doctors” say such rhetoric is based on “junk science” and condemned by women's health experts like ACOG:

But the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) was among those arguing against the measures, saying claims of “reversal” are unsupported by medical evidence.

“Claims of medication abortion reversal are not supported by the body of scientific evidence, and this approach is not recommended in ACOG's clinical guidance on medication abortion,” says an ACOG fact sheet on the Arizona law.

Lawmakers in Kansas also recently passed a measure health experts say is “dangerous for some women,” signing restrictions on dilation and evacuation procedures, a commonly used technique for second trimester abortions, on April 7. As The New York Times reported, similar bills are also “nearing passage in Oklahoma, and others have been proposed in Missouri, South Carolina and South Dakota.” The measures' indifference to the opinions of health experts followed the conservative media's playbook of ignoring science and risking harm to women for ideological gain.