ALBANY, April 25 —Gov. Eliot Spitzer plans to introduce legislation to overhaul the state’s pioneering but antiquated abortion law, shoring up a woman’s right to an abortion in New York State.

The move comes in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision last week to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, as several other states are moving to tighten restrictions on abortion. It harks back to New York’s early role in legalizing abortion — and could take on much broader significance if the Supreme Court were ever to return the matter to the discretion of the states. But the legislation is far from a certainty to win the support of the Republican-led State Senate.

New York’s abortion law, signed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, a Republican, in 1970, predated the Roe v. Wade decision by three years and made New York the second state after Hawaii to broadly legalize the procedure — and the first to allow abortions for out-of-state residents. More than half of the women having abortions came from out of state in the first two years.

But the law is now considered out of date by abortion rights advocates.

Mr. Spitzer’s bill, the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, would update the current law, which — for example — does not include a provision allowing for abortions late in pregnancies to protect a woman’s health. State laws on the books also consider abortion a homicide, with broad exceptions allowed.