“Lenzi is one of the most brilliant kids I’ve ever taught,” said Erik Ostergren, her dean at Westside High School. “We’d always say, ‘Lenzi could go in one of two directions: She could do something amazing and be fantastic, or really go off the rails.’ ”

In summer 2013, Ms. Sheible, then pregnant with her first child, Cora, started her fund immediately after Texas enacted some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the nation. The laws, both in Texas and in other Republican-dominated states, commonly impose at least a 24-hour wait between a woman’s first clinic visit and an abortion, forcing many out-of-towners to book hotels. They require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, and mandate that clinics meet the same costly equipment, building and staffing standards as an ambulatory surgical center. Clinics that cannot comply must close.

Supporters say the laws protect women’s health in case of emergencies. Abortion-rights advocates counter that the regulations are not only unnecessary, given the safety record of abortions and the availability of emergency room care, but also unconstitutional because of a Supreme Court ruling against “undue burdens” on women seeking abortions.

More such laws are expected, however, now that Republicans expanded their control of state and federal offices in this month’s elections. The next Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, wants to make a ban on abortions after 20 weeks the law of the land.

Given legal challenges to the laws in states including Alabama, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin, both sides say the Supreme Court will have to settle the matter. In the meantime, numerous clinics have closed from Arizona to North Carolina, with more closings likely. Ohio is down to eight clinics from 14, and three more are in jeopardy. Only temporary court orders have kept open the last clinic in Toledo, as well as in Mississippi.

But in few places have the changes and effects been as drastic as in sprawling Texas. From 42 abortion clinics in 13 cities in May 2013, the state now has about 20 clinics and soon may be down to eight providers in four metropolitan areas — Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, according to Naral Pro-Choice Texas — assuming, as many do, that advocates lose their appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Pending the outcome, the Supreme Court last month stayed the surgery-center standards and also allowed clinics in El Paso and McAllen, distant points on the Rio Grande border, to operate without admitting privileges.