Activists across the U.S. are taking to the streets protesting against anti-abortion laws sweeping the nation. The most extreme case is the state of Alabama, where abortions are now illegal in virtually all cases, including rape and incest. Doctors performing abortions could face up to 99 years in prison.

An anti-abortion bill is facing a legislative test in Louisiana and Missouri's governor could sign law as early as this week banning most abortions after the eighth week of pregnancy. Eight states have passed laws this year, limiting the procedure. The goal of many conservatives is to challenge the 1973 precedent Roe v. Wade that prohibits the government from imposing undue burdens for abortions.

Jessie Hill, associate dean and law professor at Case Western Reserve University, thinks it seems like this anti-abortion legislation was motivated by the replacement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy with the much more conservative Brett Kavanaugh. The anti-abortion activists may feel that it is time to mount a full-frontal challenge to Roe v. Wade and try to ultimately get it overturned in the Supreme Court.

In Hill's view, the lower courts are extremely likely to be struck down. “I don't expect any of these laws to actually go into effect in the short term,” she says, “there is a good chance that the Supreme Court will not decide to hear these challenges.”

Cindy Pearson is the executive director of the U.S. National Women's Health Network. She is concerned that the Roe v. Wade would be overturned because of these anti-abortion laws. “When people know that they need an abortion and if they're denied that abortion, the consequences of their health are significant,” Pearson told CGTN.

Kayla Roberts, the co-founder of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, shares her own story about abortion. “When I found out I was pregnant at 15, I was terrified,” she says, “I didn't have a job, I didn't want to bring another life into the world where I can barely take care myself. People telling us what to do with our body is very disgusting to me,” Roberts told CGTN.

Roberts has some words to young people who find themselves in the same agonizing position with her: “If you feel your choice is right and you feel like you need to have an abortion, you don't have to explain anything to anybody. You always have somebody behind you.”

Joshua Edmonds, the executive director of the Georgia Life Alliance, believes that human life begins at the moment of fertilization. He thinks according to common sense, and we have to do anything we can to protect that innocent life by law and prevent it from being torn apart, even for the reason of fears of poverty. “Georgia has done a great job of balancing those difficult circumstances and protecting that life in the womb from the earliest biological beginning by passing this law that will protect life at six weeks,” he says.

Pearson argues that “no ban at all” is a good balancing for women. Hill adds that the question about when life begins is a moral and spiritual question but not a question that legislators are supposed to answer. “It is a decision for each woman and each person to make for herself, there is no legal answer to this question,” Hill says.

Regarding the law in Georgia, Edmonds states that the law does not criminalize a woman for having a miscarriage or even an abortion after six weeks. “However, any doctors who violate our law and kill a child after six weeks in the womb would indeed be prosecuted,” he says. He indicates whether the law would get rid of abortion depends on whether the doctors abide by the law.

However, Pearson said the pregnant woman is a living human being who has good decision-making ability for herself. “We need to avoid assuming that the minute a woman is pregnant that she loses her civil rights.” She believes abortion doesn't go away because the law has changed.

President Trump tweeted that he is strongly pro-life with three exceptions: rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother. Hill thinks Trump himself may even recognize that laws such as the Alabama law simply go too far. “The country is waking up to the genuine threat to the Roe v. Wade which is supported by about 70 percent people of this country,” Hill says.

According to the public opinion and data company YouGov, the U.S. is more anti-abortion than other developed countries. Pearson points out that in countries where abortion is more accepted, abortion is less common because those countries also accept contraception. “And if you have good health services, good child-care services, good contraceptive services and social support from parents, you don't need any abortion.”

Some anti-abortion laws ban abortion even in the situation of rape. Hill thinks these laws send messages about how much women's lives and their bodies' integrity is valued compared to rapists'.

“It is hard for a person who has been sexually assaulted,” Roberts adds.

In Alabama, all 25 votes cast in favor of the anti-abortion bill were from white men. Should men have the rights to pass laws that impact women's health and rights? “I don't think the demographics of the people who pass laws to protect human beings should be brought into the question when we're talking about a child in the womb with a beating heart who needs to be protected under law,” Edmonds says. Pearson welcomes men to get into the conversation and recognizes that many men are supporters of women's rights.

Pearson doesn't believe the Roe V. Wade will eventually be overturned. But Hill, Roberts and Edmonds believe the opposite.